Author Archives: brogan

Swirling rain – the train seats facing the wrong way. Wet walking from Circular Quay to Central. Down the escalator to the Illawarra line. Reading an abandoned paper and missing the Sutherland stop. Off toward Cronulla and then back again … Continue reading →

For some reason Graeme Phillips was using Michael Seaman’s business cards. Perhaps he was only part time at The Good Guys. Perhaps he was only working weekends. He wrote his name in capital letters in the white space at the … Continue reading →

It rained on the way home. My helmet was wet. Could hardly put it in the top box. Brought it inside to dry. Now it rests as a strong echo of my old helmet. Both helmets face in precisely the … Continue reading →

Sleep, what’s sleep? Those small absences in the midst of a long night. The surf broke on distant rocks. I have done my best to be cheerful. It is raining once again. I can’t seem to see any details. I … Continue reading →

So many things are black. I could list them: the licorice that I am eating; the jeans that I am wearing; my motorcycle helmets; the untouched face of my mobile phone; the mouse and audio leads running into my computer; … Continue reading →

“Free Tablet”. I could use a free tablet. I should be able to begin with the simplest things, if not with objects on the table then with some words that have descended from the light air of this roughly bright … Continue reading →

The confused experience of drifting breeds fantasies and, more than this, modes of being. I lie in bed most of the day. I go on long walks. I don’t wash up. I can’t focus at work. I try to imaginatively … Continue reading →

I found a spoon placed on top of an unused Yellow Pages near the centre of the table. Rather than simply observing it, I picked it up and placed it at my left. The spoon is not directly in contact … Continue reading →

So I did it. Quick, half-arsed clean of my table. Most of the paper gone. Just a small stack of apparently necessary stuff. Two largely empty notepads. Listening to the White Stripes first album. A narrow archipelago of coins. My … Continue reading →

A scrap of paper resembles a small pig with a stunted, stumpy tail, abbreviated legs and two tiny, little distinct eyes looking straight upwards. Beyond that, as you’d expect, a quite distinct snout. This scarcely evident pig subsists in a … Continue reading →

In the morning I will often sit on the couch in the front room to eat a bowl of cereal. Occasionally I will go into the small sunroom, with its two cane chairs and large striped cushions, to look out … Continue reading →

I bought 17 native plants at the Botanic Gardens. An elderly employee helped me load my car. He stood beside my trolley and handed me the plants one by one. Each time he said something about the size of the … Continue reading →

The leather laces of the fronds blow against the grey sky. The far window has 12 panes. The curtains are always pulled. The roof is immaculate green. The intensity of green grass. The hedge around my BBQ is already growing … Continue reading →

I have closed the glass door against the windy day. Four green tomatoes that had been growing next my front sewer line – product of an earlier disaster – sit hopefully on my rear step. Doubtful they will ripen. I’m … Continue reading →

People were here. They have gone. A unopened bottle of wine, or better, a bottle of wine not drunk, stands close by and in the near distance a morbid relic – a collapsed headstone, actually a breadboard. Bread, olives and … Continue reading →

Circular echoes. All in close proximity. That small rubber band. The opening of a pouch and its looping draw string. The bronze guitar slide in the pouch. The top rim of a coffee cup. The rubber band and bronze slide … Continue reading →

I walked up Gray St and across the Princes Highway to the new housing development on Woodland Avenue. Completed about a decade ago but still unconvincing. Small blocks, big houses, lots of brick and half grown gardens. Turned right at … Continue reading →

I can recognise implicitly that I should write about the mandarins. They are so strikingly orange. They nestle into my wooden fruit bowl like clouds above a low valley, or better still, like bloody offal in a saucer – the … Continue reading →

No end to this rain. The sky is a dim and striated grey. I bought a ceramic bird bath on the way home to put beneath the Christmas bush in the garden. I was the last customer for the day. … Continue reading →

A long, sharp knife beside the laptop, shining with a thin slick of lemon juice. Beside it a half drunk bottle of beer. In the air above, one of three lights on the chandelier – a pool of glowing glass, … Continue reading →

Darkness again. The only light. I lost my way today. Muffled sound of rain. I am searching in the shadows for the certainty of ghosts. Somebody had to die here, but why should they bother hanging around? No idea, especially … Continue reading →

A smiling young man in a Godzilla suit towers above a small artificial city. Fetch TV – some kind of on-line movie delivery system. $9.95 a month, and for only $20 more, the full entertainment pack, with additional television channels. … Continue reading →

Sunlight zig-zagging up a low tiered garden wall. Getting cooler. I am wearing a black jumper. Listening to John Fahey’s “The Legend of Blind Joe Death”. The volume fades down in the middle of a track for no particular reason, … Continue reading →

A small pile of waste paper is arranged at the right side of the table. I deliberately placed it there in preparation for me to fetch it up, exit at the sliding glass door, turn left beneath a modest verandah, … Continue reading →