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John Arthur Nichol

  • A girl sits vacant-eyed on the train, chin in hand, fingers splayed, little finger resting on her lips.

  • Fining Up

    York Street, Sydney, looking towards the Town Hall

    A city street narrows towards thick green foliage, and a clock tower made of sandstone rising in ornate levels from behind it. Beyond the tower are tall buildings, and grey clouds divided by ragged patches of blue. The footpath in the foreground is dark-paved, slick and shiny from the rain, with a bus stop in the middle, and runs past a long frontage of big store windows brightly reflecting buildings across the street. Those buildings are a mix of styles from the 19th and 20th centuries.

  • Putin’s talked through his arse from the start;
    Now his underwear’s falling apart.
    Take ‘petard’, often pinned,
    From the French ’to break wind’,
    And he’s hoist by his own little fart.

  • Dogs Do Sushi

    The door of a sushi restaurant has a printed cloth hanging inside the glass. It features a tree with pink cherry blossoms, and beneath it a thick carpet of cherry blossoms, upon which two dogs sit side by side, with their backs to the viewer, looking up. The dogs are small and grey, with darker patches, dark, floppy ears, and a sprinkle of cherry blossoms on their heads. The space between branch and ground is light, speckled grey, and includes Asian script in black ink. Signs include a closed sign with a clock, ‘Mind your Step’ and various home delivery services. The road behind and a brick building with arches are reflected brightly.

  • An entity rises in the seat beside me, as my fellow-traveller struggles into her rain jacket.

  • In Neutral Bay, a cafe window showcases two fat croissants, and the couple sitting down to eat them.

  • Each time a passenger stands to leave the bus, a child’s voice at the back calls: ‘Bye bye!’

  • Above a shopfront awning on Pittwater Road, a cardboard carton sags through a broken window. The edges of the glass are covered with tape.

  • A fragment of sunshine hits the bus queue in Dee Why, and every raindrop is a shaft of light.

  • The Order of Courage is spawning
    In Russia, but not for the fawning;
    Its recipients, cursed,
    Have to detonate first,
    Which for some may be seen as a warning.

  • Down on the Surface

    A field of broken rocks is barely discernible in the foreground, which lies in deep shadow, and ends in a line of sharp, hard-edged stones backlit by an area of intense golden light that shines from a crater, whose slopes are also littered with rocks and stones. The line where foreground and background meet runs from low down on the left to high up on the right. Beyond the crater lies a crust of deeper browns.

  • The achievements of Putin are sweeping,
    And recorded for Infamy’s keeping;
    Every notch, every knurl,
    Like the death of a girl,
    Just eleven years old, who was sleeping.

  • A Sea Change in Luxury

    Looking into a street where grey floodwater covers the road surface and both footpaths, forming a lake in which stand traffic signs, street lights, telecom boxes, a street posting box and a step-ladder with only its very top showing above the water. Heavy rain falls on the lake, pitting its surface, and the sky and the ambient light are grey. In the distance a man slogs knee-deep towards a partly-submerged brick building. He has a sandbag on his shoulder, and clutches another bag that’s in the water. Outside the brick building a sign is displayed showing a woman lying on a beach, with the slogan: ‘Bathers - A Sea Change in Luxury is Coming’.

  • An older man grins and shouts across Lyons Road in Drummoyne, moving his arm in a huge, exaggerated wave. He forms his hands into a camera shape and snaps a finger down, then drops his arms and laughs.

    Across the road, a second older man emerges from behind a parked car, head down, forearm lifted in reluctant acknowledgement. He enters the car, shuts the door and drives away.

  • A small girl stands on the foot platform of a pram, facing forwards and reaching an arm above the roof. She talks and makes slow, considered movements with her hand, as if explaining a difficult concept.

  • A blue cattle dog crosses the road on a lead. A ruler-straight line runs down the centre of its face and muzzle, and everything on one side is black.

  • A woman with short grey hair stands rapping a hand against her thigh as she watches the traffic. She has short grey hair and a yellow ochre dress with matching bag. One eyebrow is up, and her face implies that nothing good will come of this.

  • A small boy makes a break for it, running flat out through Triangle Park in Dee Why. His mother thunders after him, spectacles awry and sandals slapping on the concrete. At the edge of the road she catches him, and they cross together.

  • Good Times

    Upstairs at Abbey’s: Star Wars and The Language Bookshop, Sydney

    A life-size Star Wars startrooper stands at the top of a staircase, surrounded by book displays, a greeting card stand and posters. Beside the trooper is a pile of catalogues in an angled tray. The posters feature ‘Lonely Planet’ guides and current fiction titles like ‘It Starts with Us’ and ‘Spice Road’, and an Asterix title lebelled ‘Nouvel Album’ in French, with cutouts of characters below.

  • Reptilian Russian, a repto,
    Sends force, unprepared and inepto,
    To ransack the store
    Of the nation next door
    In the classic, Attack of the Klepto.

  • Hard Times

    Three dark stone steps lead up to a restaurant door and window. The interior is warmly lit and filled with customers. In the cold, grey light outside, two pugs huddle together on the top step. One lies with its chin on the step while the other, behind it, half sits and half leans against the window like a wounded soldier, its head turned towards a man about to walk inside. The dogs are small, but have thick black rope and strong brass clips locked onto their collars, enhancing the impression that they are condemned prisoners abandoned at the door.

  • Three families are off to the Easter Show on a day that promises rain. A girl arrives at the stop in rabbit ears, hopping and grinning. Another breaks into a spontaneous dance. Above such childish things, a young teen swishes crisp, flared trouser hems bare millimetres from the ground, ready to wow those farmyard animals in the mud.

  • A young man, blonde, wears a briar thicket of dreadlocks at the back of his cap. He has a black umbrella.

  • A woman brings her emotional baggage onto the bus, in a labelled shoulder bag.

  • Bicycles hang like bats on a Dee Why balcony.