🌞   🌛
John Arthur Nichol

  • 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.

  • Puny Putin must always conflate
    Catherine, Peter and Vova the Great;
    So he follows his star
    To a land bridge too far,
    And another blown up in the strait.

    🇺🇦

  • Gum Blossoms 3

    A close-up of a gum flower cluster where most of the flowers have morphed into new gumnuts coloured predominantly in a purple blush, with smaller patches of greenish cream. Only a few flowers round the bottom edge of the cluster still have their fringe of red filaments and tiny asters. The gumnuts are shaped like little goblets covered with pointy domes, and bulging where they join the stem.

  • A shop in Dee Why boasts that sauna:

    • Burns calories
    • Boosts immunity
    • Reduces Pain
    • Improves sleep
    • Removes toxins
    • Relaxes the mind
    • Transforms your body, beauty, mind, mood and sleep

    So … you lot in Scandinavia must be, like, you know, glowing.

  • An old woman across the road pulls a shopping trolley. Her taut black face-mask covers only her mouth, and looks like a gag.

  • ‘I’m looking for the handbrake there’s no handbrake,’ says a tall, bare-chested man, tanned and possibly in his 30s, addressing an audience of two at the bus stop. He rambles back and forth, unshod, and his t-shirt swings from his jeans.

  • At Bridgepoint in Mosman, a tiny girl waits among grown-ups for the lift. She has masses of blonde hair, and a black A4 portfolio in one hand.

    There’s an open space in front of her and she edges towards it, glancing up at the faces around her. When she reaches the middle she lifts her arms and starts to spin, the portfolio pulling her round and round.

    When the lift arrives, she stops, and looks up at her mum. They crowd aboard.

  • An elderly couple enters the Spit Junction Aldi store together. The woman rushes off and the man calls out to her:

    ‘We’ve got bananas we don’t need bananas. We’ve got tomatoes we don’t need tomatoes.’

  • Gum Blossoms 2

    A cluster of gum tree flowers, as in Gum Blossoms 1, but here many more of them have been fertilised, and have shed their red frills and closed the lid over the cup shape of the gumnut. Now we can see that each gumnut has its own thick, succulent-looking stalk that flares out at the end, holding the gumnut in place. The nuts and their stems are all coloured with bands of greenish-cream and blushing pink or purple. Behind them are just as many flowers, if not more, that retain their frills of red, and below are two gumnuts that have hardened, opened and dropped their seeds.

  • A plane has a bomb and it drops it,
    In Belgorod! Nobody stops it!
    A bombing campaign
    Is okay in Ukraine,
    But the shock when it’s Russia that cops it!

    🇺🇦

  • Gum Blossoms 1

    A close-up photo of a cluster of gum tree flowers. Each flower consists of a cup shape which will later harden into a gumnut. Most are still in the flower stage, with a thick fringe of short, red filaments topped by cream anthers round the edge of the open cup. Each flower has a single cream stigma rising from the heart. One or two flowers have shed their filaments and closed off the cup with a lid. These cups, or nuts, are off-white in colour, with a faint stain of purple in a band around the top.

  • The Kerch Bridge

    Putin wasn’t concerned with protection
    When he forced his unwanted connection;
    His unnatural lust
    Added length to his thrust,
    But he couldn’t maintain his erection.

    🇺🇦