Camping out
The frigate
the frigate does its morning yoga
you think about it
the frigate does its morning yoga
in the shallow bay
the sea whispers loudlyconvincingly at first
the frigate is a sealyou think about it
while you’re taking a break
from the things that keep youawake at night
realise the sea’s wrong –it always wants to look on
the shiny side of life –
the frigate isn’t like a sealexcept for the fact it shimmies
it’s humanlike you
Walking poem
I can barely ride a bicycle
I can barely ride a bicycle
but I’m highly competent at hurtling through space
spiralling, the planetsturn around the sun
avoiding each other
the bicycle is one of the great inventions
for economy
but I prefer feetI hope my feet last
and the knees –
when I can’t walk, I’ll be deadunless I can find someone
willing to push me to the river
to write haiku
Euphorbia
I wake inside a euphorbia
you hold my hand
I wake inside a euphorbia
green leaves flowering yellow
dry eucalypt leaves fall to the sand
colouring our feet
the bark of the banksiablooms in knobbles
as the washing line punches outflowering towels, swimming suits
sarongs
birds of the night open rose calls –moreporks of the high trees
kookaburras arrow through campin the early morning
ants’ circleslike petals on rock
you hold my hand
in a reassuring gesture
kick off a season I write it down three times
describing it
because we’re seven times more likely to remember negative flowers
Bonsai
we were standing there getting bonsaied by the wind
the horizon changed from uncertainty to azure lift
we walk one line at a time
a poem might journey itself in a morning
we’re getting bonsaied by the wind
but swimming
I’m underwater, hardly affected by the wind
in a fishy world where flowers bloom
a different kind of oxygen
they’re not flowers, but coral or nudibranchs,
sea grass or kelp
I don’t understand the animals, fish
they’re thin and wide at the same time
they glance at you
wiggle their tail fins and shoot on
if they notice you at all
I give up burdens of thought
we were standing there getting bonsaied by the wind
the horizon changed from uncertainty to azure lift
we walk one line at a time
a poem might journey itself in a morning
we’re getting bonsaied by the wind
but swimming
I’m underwater, hardly affected by the wind
in a fishy world where flowers bloom
a different kind of oxygen
they’re not flowers, but coral or nudibranchs,
sea grass or kelp
I don’t understand the animals, fish
they’re thin and wide at the same time
they glance at you
wiggle their tail fins and shoot on
if they notice you at all
I give up burdens of thought
wave like kelp
make a tiny effortslide forward
Season
she did set off a season
I came to her in the moonlight
she did set off a season
it was the moon at first –
the new season’s name –
a month of night, cool and star-freightedI came to her in the moonlight
with a jar filled
with a thousand white chrysanthemums
she recognised the gift as a tributeto her
and to our friend who died – Alison’s jarwe call it
I cooked spinach over an open fire, folded in the cheese
and we ate with wooden spoons
over an open welltelling stories that dipped
their endings in moonlight
to start a new storywe met there
for days of night
walked shores, open forestsin a slow daze sharing
Owen Bullock’s latest poetry collection is Pancakes for Neptune (Recent Work Press, 2023), following three previous poetry titles, five books of haiku, a bilingual edition of tanka, and a novella. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Canberra.