🌞   🌛
John Arthur Nichol

  • 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.

    🇺🇦

  • 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.