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John Arthur Nichol

  • A woman inside the gelato shop to a woman with a small dog outside the gelato shop:

    ‘I didn’t mean you’re an idiot.’

  • As if by magic, mother and Small Bundle of Energy are again on the far side of the road. Conferring. The mother turns and walks along the front of the hotel, and Small Bundle cartwheels after her.

  • A car swings round the corner and zips past. In the near-side window is a short red haircut and a pale, frowning forehead.

  • At the front of a bicycle, a mini fox terrier sits tall in a milk crate.

  • A mother and her Small Bundle of Energy cross the road. Small Bundle is blonde, in pink shorts and green top, and swings her arm in a circle while enriching her stride with skips, leaps and side-steps. Set free on the footpath, she trials a sequence of arm movements, then hops into a dance routine.

  • A free-range black cocker spaniel says hello then steps back, waiting for his elderly human. At the main road he pauses again, for harness attachment, and when his human is safely secured he trots around the corner.

  • The Water Flask

    The foreground has a shaded footpath, a shaded low wall and three shaded figures sitting on the wall. Beyond, in bright sunshine, is a stretch of pale sand, a choppy surf and dark blue sea beyond the breakers. The sky is a pale, washed out blue. Five figures stand at the edge of the surf, and others splash in the waves. Seagulls in clusters stand at the very edge of the water, facing left. Of the three foreground figures, two are women half turned towards each other, with bags on the wall between them. The third figure sits further along, head bowed as if reading, and is almost in silhouette. Her white bag sits behind her on the path, printed with a design and the word ‘Joyful’. Beside her, on the wall, stands a transparent flask half filled with water. A thick straw rises from the bottom of the flask and pokes up through an angled lid.

  • In Putin’s peculiar obsession,
    He’s an emperor seeking expression;
    As a Nazi who’d like
    His own thousand-year Reich,
    He’s indifferent to words like aggression.

  • This tree’s not going anywhere.

    On a grey day, on a suburban street corner, a high brick wall runs along the boundary. The bricks are painted dull ochre, with crumbling patches of cream cement render over the top. A riot of vegetation springs up behind the wall, and on the footpath in front of it stands a tree, hemmed in by a barrier of very short, very thick brown posts with square aluminium caps. A metal tube runs through all the posts. The barrier appears to have been built to keep the tree in.

  • Two police cars rip like bullets through the intersection, and before you even register what’s happened, they’re gone.

  • A small girl is dressed to kill in a hot pink top, pink and white striped fairy skirt, black leggings and pink shoes. She has long brown curly hair, and a topknot that bounces like a pom pom.

  • In the shade of the Telstra box, a schoolboy sits with his laptop open and a bag between his feet. Behind him, the Tasman Sea is blue.

  • Two parents with a stroller wait to cross the side-street. A small, imperious finger points, and both parents lean right down. With tufts of brown hair blowing in the wind, the child chews thoughtfully on its dummy.

  • A serious-looking older woman, with silver hair in a salon bob, pauses with one hand raised and performs a stately pirouette. Her Miniature Schnauzer looks up, satisfied, and they continue to the lights.

  • A line of school kids in mufti walks down from Battle Boulevard at the Spit. One girl is a beetle with her jacket over a backpack, and two boys at the end wear ribbed, bright yellow carapaces.

  • Social Climbing, Manly Wharf

    A harbour scene with pale blue sky and deep blue, glistening water. Blocks of flats, houses and trees in the distance. In the foreground, in the water, an old timber safety barrier crosses from bottom right to middle left. The barrier is made of long, heavy timber beams laid horizontally, supported by vertical timber pylons disappearing into the water, with a crust of barnacles. Angled pylons further support these, and everything is reflected in the gently rippled water. A sign on the back of the barrier says: ‘Swimming and diving prohibited’. In the middle distance is a long jetty with a colourful group of figures standing in the sun. Below, in blurry silhouette, a girl climbs a ladder from the water, and a second girl, still in the water, clings to a rope strung between two pylons.

  • With Ukraine so gamely resisting,
    Russia’s ship of aggression is listing.
    As the vessel goes down,
    Some abandon, some drown,
    And a little tsar’s neck gets a twisting.

  • Practice

    Practice on a Pest

    A bird called an Indian Mynah, an invasive species, seen from behind with its head turned to the left and blurred grass in the background, sits on a concrete gutter. Its feathers are shades of brown, with a thin white band at the tip of its tail and another on the edge of each wing. The head and neck are dark brown, with a yellow mask around its eye linked up to a pointy yellow beak.

    March Photoblog Challenge Day 31

  • Wild and Succulent

    A small succulent or semi-succulent plant grows in the middle of a patch of beach sand that includes shells and small pieces of stone. The leaves, so thick they could almost have been moulded from pale green wax, are roughly oval in shape with curved indentations all around the edges. Some of the leaves are speckled with sand, and some show the marks of insect damage. At the top of one spray of leaves is a cluster of flower buds, three of which are opening into purple flowers.

  • In his bubble, with those who agree,
    Vladimir Vladimirovich P
    Gives a shrug at Bakhmut:
    ‘They’re just fodder on foot.
    All that matters to history is me.'

  • A tall young woman at Collaroy, elegant in a long, black, sleeveless dress and wearing her dark hair piled high, walks to the crossing with a white cord swinging in her hand. She swaps a tablet to her other hand and presses the pedestrian button.

  • A young woman struggles out to the footpath with the Adult Novelties sign.

  • A small girl dances by a pram, toes turning and heels swinging back and forth.

  • A man in dark blue clothing reaches the bus stop, out of breath. He wipes his mouth, grinning foolishly as he watches the two B1s pull away.

  • Two B1s arrive in convoy at Warringah Mall, and half the queue makes a break for the second bus. One of the breakaways, a woman in a black mask, stops suddenly and glances up at each top deck in turn. Decision made, she runs.