🌞   🌛
John Arthur Nichol

  • Pandemic oddities: maskless, a woman stabs the pedestrian button with a naked elbow.

  • Near the turn-off to Long Reef Beach, a square is cut from the undergrowth and filled with small white cylinders in rows.

  • An upright, tall old woman climbs to the top deck and stumbles back as the bus takes off. She grips a pole and recovers with a rueful smile, pushes forward and eases into the seat that overlooks the stairs.

    She wears a bright red cardigan over several cheerful layers: a wide-collared blouse whose floral design is like a watercolour; a pink scarf drawn close at the throat and looped once, loosely, at the chest; an ankle-length skirt with a pattern of tiny mauve and purple flowers on their stems; grey socks, and sandals whose straps are bronze, silver and gold.

    Her hat is all coloured bands and layers, with the brim turned up at the back, where grey hair tapers neatly behind the ear. At the front the brim turns down, shielding the tops of her glasses.

    Before she can relax, she has two bags and a book to organise. One bag is dark brown leather, with orange ornaments and strap, and the other is a light-weight olive green sack whose bottom hangs heavy. She tries various arrangements before settling the green bag on her lap and the brown bag on top of it, upright on its base and leaning against her middle.

    Holding the book in both hands and looking down over the brown bag, she reads. Her hands come together to turn a page, and the cover is revealed: A Man’s Got to Have a Hobby, by William McInnes.

  • A man on a big black motorbike pulls up his tank top to wipe the left side mirror, leaning right forward with his belly hanging out. His beard is big and black, his legs are hairy and his camouflage-brown helmet is shaped like a soup bowl. He chucks an illegal u-turn at the lights and parks on the other side, blocking the entrance to a lane.

  • Cocktails, Curry and a Happy Ending

    Three shopfronts viewed between parked vehicles on the far side of a city street. The middle shop has a rectangle of bright yellow above its entrance, with a bright pink and orange logo saying Pinky Ji's and stylised floral arrangements on either side. A neon sign at the top of the window says 'Cocktails & Curry', and a much bigger neon sign near the base of the window says 'Happy Ending' in block letters. A man stands in the foreground, near one of the parked cars, looking at his phone.

    Pinky Ji's on York Street, Sydney

  • In Russia you’re free to be free,
    If you’re not against bending the knee,
    Or denouncing a friend,
    And you’re able to bend
    Your reality, watching TV.

    🇺🇦

  • Queen Victoria Building, Up Close

    Delicate vine-leaf carvings at the end of a wall and on the side of a column, beneath the beginnings of a sandstone arch. The wall-end carving is a square shape, with a vine stem rising up in high relief and curling under on either side. The patterns within are symmetrical and meet in the middle. On the column, the carving is a half-cup shape, with the same stem in high-relief at the outer edge and the vines inside forming circles and overlapping curves, avoiding symmetry. Each section is crowned with three narrow layers of stone, and above these the arch begins; plain with a rounded trim above the column, but above the square section incorporating an echo of the leaf patterns in very high relief and deep shadows.

  • A black-haired girl thumps into the seat and slides down out of sight, her knees pressed up against the seat in front. Her hands press deep between her thighs, taking her face-mask with them.

  • A girl with a white-nosed teddy bear in a t-shirt stays under the radar as she creeps around the cafe: soft white shoes, round white collar, checked skirt, lemon cardigan with embroidered flowers. She leans against the wall, all innocence, and stealthily flicks off the power points feeding a pair of laptops round the corner.

  • An island in the Parramatta River. A terra cotta roof like a pagoda.

  • In Neutral Bay, a woman walks stiffly in her stained glass coat, all black lines and coloured triangles. She has long grey hair.

  • As we cross the Spit, five lime green sails are standing on a distant beach.

  • Stone Work, Up Close

    Four courses of ornamental sandstone, in alternating lines of two short blocks and single blocks. Unique patterns of broad, curved lines and shapes are carved within a rectangular border. The spaces inside the lines are filled with deep, dark fissures, their edges thin and delicate, like the cells of a wasp’s nest.

  • Poor Putin - now don’t be a scorner -
    He’s painted himself in a corner,
    And the blood is still damp;
    Sure, let’s give him a ramp …
    To the fires of hell for a sauna.

    🇺🇦

  • As a satellite falls from the sky,
    So the sociopath from on high;
    His contemptible flight
    Is a flash in the night,
    So to Vladimir Putin, goodbye.

    🇺🇦

  • Oops! Another stray bomb on the ground
    In Belgorod, lying around;
    Unnoticed for hours,
    In bed with the flowers
    Like Russia, not making a sound.

    🇺🇦

  • The Ocean Pool at Collaroy

    A sunny but cold day, looking down from a clifftop crowned with grass and nasturtium leaves, at an empty beach swimming pool. The surface of the pool is rippled but flat. We can see half the pool and two of its concrete walls, lined with chains and bollards, jutting out at an angle into the sea. Two people stand together at the very furthest point. Below the cliff is a set of steps running the length of the pool, and a broad concrete walkway at the pool’s edge, with a ramp and railings descending to the water. A man with a phone sits alone in the middle of the steps, dressed in trainers and dark pants, dark jacket with wide collar, blue cap and glasses. We see him from above. In both the ocean and the pool, the water is deep blue, shading to green in the shallows.

  • A woman stands across the road with a boy and girl. The boy is small and serious in shorts and t-shirt but the girl, a tween, is doing poses, holding her mother’s arm and poking her bottom out, straightening up and making patterns in the air with pointer fingers. She wears a faded t-shirt over swimmers, and her feet are bare.

  • A woman in green stands on the corner, the wind buffeting her knee-length tent.

  • An ancient woman leans on a stick with every step, as she pulls her trolley from the supermarket. Her back is bent almost double, and her face is alight with interest.

  • A woman whose age should not be guessed is talking at the cafe. Her salon-fresh bob appears, at first glance, to be silvery grey. And so it is, but where it curves beneath her chin the undersides are deep, reddish brown. She’s animated, bending forward, pumping her fists up and down and smiling, talking quickly. She pauses, hand to forehead, then straightens again and glides her hands in mirrored gestures, like leaves floating down from a tree.

  • Far across the cafe sits the Antiques Roadshow presenter look-alike, dressed as always in blue jeans, black shoes, button-up shirt and a vest. Today his sleeves are short and his sunglassed cap rests by his elbow on the table. Ratty hair straggles to his shoulders. His balding crown is lit from above, and chevrons ripple down his back.

  • Fossicking, On a Forgotten Winter’s Day

    A group of adults and children cast long shadows as they fossick on a beach. Everyone is dressed for Winter, in jumpers and long trousers, except for a man in shorts and t-shirt who bends down to support a child, a blue backpack on the sand beside him. A second man, almost in silhouette at the water’s edge, fully dressed and carrying a backpack, leans forward holding the hand of a toddler in a pink top, red pants and trainers. The man’s heel is lifted, with water flowing beneath. Nearby are two small girls with long blonde hair. They’re dressed alike, and may be twins. One crouches down on the sand, hair loose, and the other stands facing the sea with her toes almost touching the waves. She wears a jacket with long sleeves, a knee-length dress, dark tights and white trainers. Her hair is in a plait. One arm lifts slightly, as if she wants to reach out. A woman walks down the sand towards the group, hair up, hands on hips. She wears long pants and a white hoody, but her feet are bare.

  • Russia’s army’s diminished again,
    So it’s calling on men to be men,
    Which in Russia means earning
    Through torture and burning
    And looting and dying. Amen.

    🇺🇦

  • Stone Work

    A four-storey sandstone building seen across a city street. The ground floor has four tall, arched windows and a tall, arched doorway in the middle. Each arch is lined with stone blocks with deep patterns of lines, loops and texture carved into their faces. Each arch is topped with a plain, elongated keystone. The three storeys above each have seven arched windows in different styles. Three people stand in a group outside the building as a pair of old women approach a bicycle leaning on a pole. A lone figure stands beneath an umbrella. At the very top two workers are suspended on ropes.