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John Arthur Nichol

  • Pittwater Road in the late afternoon, looking North

    The sun is a hot white glow behind a bank of cloud, in a late afternoon sky alive with cloud formations. Deeply shadowed cumulus hangs above the ground like storm clouds, and higher up there are wisps, slashes and trails of white and grey against grey blue rivers of sky. The foreground is a main road edged with suburban blocks, receding into the distance. One side is in deep shade. On the other stands a telegraph pole, in crisp silhouette, with a street light arching over the roadway and three overhead cables exiting the top of the frame. Tall trees rise in silhouette against the glare, and a small blue disc of lens flare hangs like a second sun.

  • A woman frowns over a table at Manon, journaling with a heavy hand.

  • Last on at a random stop is a man with six battered feathers in his hat, their quills all jammed together, and grey hair that’s long and greasy. He wears glasses, boots and shorts, and a shirt that proclaims ‘When love is not madness it is not love.’

  • The Iron Cove Bridge runs over a sheet of glass, where toy boats rest on the surface.

  • The girl in front can’t leave her hair alone. It’s long, dark and dry, and many lost strands are littering her ribbed purple blouse.

  • Three stages of a bus trip …

    A freckled, red-haired seven-year old turns sideways on the bus seat, eliminating his mother and brother from view, and presses his pale cheek against the seat back. He scratches a private message there.

    The red-haired boy’s younger brother kneels on the seat in front, facing backwards: ‘No-o-o! I go first, Kris-tin.’ Their game of Scissors Paper Rock is doomed from the start.

    The red-haired boy is relaxing now, ankle on knee and collector’s album open. He’s browsing his Pokémon cards.

  • In the glare of morning a car breaks in two, and one half speeds away. It becomes a motorbike.

  • Macquarie Pass, South of Wollongong

    Looking from one verandah past thick green foliage and another, roofed verandah, towards a mountain pass in the distance that is draped in low-lying clouds. Rolling green hills gradually blur into grey until the last hills and the range beyond are silhouettes distinguished only by the depth of their shadow.

  • A young woman standing upstairs on the bus has very short hair and a very baggy long sleeved newspaper shirt. One of her recurring headlines is ‘Pleasure - The Rush of Time Slows’.

  • Beside the Burnt Bridge Creek Bypass, a gabled house peeps over the sound barrier. Its windows look surprised.

  • The bus is so crowded that six people flout the rule against standing on the upper deck. Leaning on the stair rail, a man explores a woman’s waist with his fingers. She pats his bottom.

  • A man walks past the Bathers sales office in Collaroy. He’s a stocky man in his 30s wearing a brown jacket, a brown cap, brown shorts, and a backpack with attachments that sway as he walks. The outside of his calf is black with tattoos, like an abyss.

  • A tall young woman in black breaks into a run, and her wrists fly out to the sides.

  • A worried woman stands by the bus stop pole at the edge of the footpath. She has a scarf wrapped round her hair, is plump, and wears an off-green t-shirt with black pants that conceal her shoes. The t-shirt is snagged in the waistline and hitched up at the side. In front of the woman stands a blue shopping trolley. Its wheels are white with blue centres, and a cloth bag is looped over the handle. The bag is purple but the strap looped over is orange. The woman holds her fingertips together, fidgeting.

  • Rooted: Milsons Point, Sydney

    The mossy side of a sandstone cliff, and the flowing, contorted roots of a Moreton Bay Fig tree, merge together as if they are part of a single entity. A black hole stands between two broken and weathered layers of stone, and green leaves shoot from a scattering of twigs. The stone and the tree share dark grey stains from decades of passing motor vehicles.

  • Putin’s trip to Luhansk is all front,
    Using officers groomed for the stunt,
    And a stage fitted out
    As the worthy redoubt
    Of a slimy, degenerate runt.

    🇺🇦

  • The Queen Victoria Building. York Street, Sydney

    A long building made of sandstone stretches into the distance, topped with copper domes that have aged to green. The ground floor is all windows beneath a light and graceful awning. Above this are many ornate arched facades rising two storeys, bisected by horizontal stone bands that separate the lower, tall, rectangular windows from the shorter arched windows above. The wall continues above these with bands of high and low relief, rising to a separate tier supporting the towers topped by copper domes. Tall, modern buildings rise in the background against a bright blue sky.

  • Putin’s visited troops at the rear -
    So he says, but the facts are unclear:
    For in footage collated
    And geolocated,
    The dictator doesn’t appear.

    🇺🇦

  • Where Pigeons Dare

    Milsons Point Station, Sydney

    A circular metal sculpture in the shape of a ring, made from individual sections welded together, with a flat plate at each join. The sections have cutouts in swirly shapes, cogwheel shapes, spirals and ellipses, and one contains steel bars set in a zigzag pattern like a bridge. The main structure stands on a steel wedge shaped like a shark fin, which in turn is bolted to a concrete plinth. The sculpture stands on grass beside a path, with a wall and train station behind it. A pigeon sits on the very top of the ring. Three pigeons sit at the bottom, inside the ring, and others on two of the metal plates that lie horizontally. A dozen pigeons sit on the concrete plinth, and two on the grass. The sky is white - washed out.

  • Far-removed from the catus in Cato,
    Putin frowns, like a puzzled potato,
    A delusional spud
    Coming down with a thud
    Cause he’s doubled his border with NATO.

  • Behind Victoria’s Back: Near Town Hall, Sydney

    In the foreground is a shadowed open space with dark stone pavers laid in concentric circles. The space is dominated by a statue of Queen Victoria, seen from the back. The statue is in deep shade and stands in silhouette against a backdrop of tall buildings lit brightly by the late afternoon sun. The statue’s plinth is the height of two people, and a young woman in a bright yellow vest leans against it with her pushbike. She has long dark hair, long red sleeves and grey trousers, and is looking off to the side as if she’s seen someone she knows. A girl stands nearby being photographed, and various tourists, workers and window-shoppers populate the square and the street beyond. The statue on the plinth is a throne, with the back of the queen’s head visible above it. In the middle ground, a sunlit building supports a structure of scaffolding draped with huge loops of grey mesh like gathered curtains. It merges with the statue and almost seems to be part of it, or perhaps a ship that hangs in the air.

  • Beside the tracks is a waterlogged paddock, an island of grass, and a grazing horse.

  • Paddocks climb towards the forest near Otford, and horses graze by the fence.

  • An island, some metres in length, stands in the Cooks River near Wolli Creek. Just beyond it, two sunlit pelicans stand in the water.

  • Approaching Town Hall Station: a man heads for the stairs with an evil laugh, pressing a phone to his ear.