Haiku's from the buddhist retreat at Bundanoon...

Blundstones peak from

monk’s orange robe

as he minds steps

through grey gum forest

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thunk of timber

into iron stove;

then, warm silence

in the monks’ hall

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Buddhas and silly wool hats

greet wombat cruising

for night-time bread treat

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walking to nowhere

and everthing

at once –

simple as heel-toe-

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the constant

and grinding erasure

of his conscience
and consciousness

"Phoebe" - insta-yarn

Her hipster friends in Bondi thought it took the all-time ironic prize: for a living, Phoebe sold military insignia on-line to lonely guys. She'd learned the biz from her uncle, who survived Long Tan, when he still operated from a shop that never rolled up its security grates in one of those odd 70s shopping arcades in Parramatta. Sometimes, he'd take her down to the wharves at Botany, where fellows would borrow cigarettes from him, to see the crates come from the suppliers in Taiwan. She recalled his opening them up with a small crow bar from the boot of his beaten-up Torana. Then, digging through the first layer of pink packing Styrofoam. And, finding faux WW2 medals of Vichy France, or imitation American Civil War belt buckles. As he'd start his inventory or what not with his clipboard and Biro, Phoebe would trace her fingers along the Chinese characters burnt with a blowtorch onto the splintering sides of the crates.

"Colin" - insta-yarn

When he first apprenticed out at Cockatoo, the supervisor saw Colin had gone to Fort Street High. So, he put him in the Drafting Department where they produced the blueprints for the ships being built. When Colin first saw them, they reminded him of the elaborate puzzle the 'rellies' had sent from England that one time. His sister and him had spread the 1000 pieces out on the Lino of the sleep-out that one stinkin hot summer at Umina, careful not to get sand on the floor so the pieces'd click in clean. It was like that with the drafting, he'd learn. Patience, precision, purpose - and patience again - said the supervisor in his thick glasses. Colin listened closely and touched the adjustment wheel on the crafted compass. He'd put it down carefully, and then run his thumb down the thick black edge of the T-square.

"Jack" - insta-yarn

After Jack hit 60 and he'd lost another finger to the angle grinder, they moved him off the heavy machinery. Gave him a little area - still in the machine shed but off to the side - where he'd fix the bikes that management used to get around the naval yard. Sometimes, a younger bloke would come past and shake the chain link fence that marked off Jack's little workshop. "Rattlin your cage, Jacko" or some shite, they'd yell. He'd go back to degreasing a chain or changing a tyre tube, doing it very well, and knowing that they could never take away all the years around all the yard's steel and iron.

"Malcolm" - insta-yarn

When the office was putting on the squeeze, Malcolm would sometimes trail them. It's when you were looking, that it happened. The dog dropped his shit; she'd pretend to look for the plastic bag in her pocket; he'd issue the fine and listen to the usual stuff about 'you're just revenue raising' or 'don't you have better things to be doing'. He wouldn't bite cos that's exactly what he was planning on. Going back to the demountable Ranger office, playing Suduko in the Sunday paper's solitary back pages, and ignoring the screaming headlines about beheadings planned for Martin Place.

"Kevin" - insta-yarn

They were gonna sell the houso flats in Balmain, Kevin knew, and he got that. He'd built stuff from steel, iron and aluminium out at Cockatoo for years. Things had t' happen. Now, standing at his kitchen sinking and rinsing his departed wife's old tea cup, he watched his old crane out on the island. Rusting to bits and only producing seagull eggs. Everything has it's end, yup. But what he didn't get was the easy millions that the various hedge fund manager and other blokes who just drank coffee for a living would get out of it all. When he asked his grandson what he did for a crust, the young fella was honest enough to say: "I type and I talk." Kevin remembered how out on the island one of the few female clerks would right out your blue pay slip by hand in the early days. On the Kiandra ferry on the way home, he'd look at the different handwriting each week, and know that he'd got something done.

"Deirdre" - insta-yarn

She knew what they were keeping out, but she wondered what was kept in, Deirdre thought to herself walking to her nurse's shift in the ER. Back home in Ireland, you took the darknesses for granted - like peat digs in the soil. Here, they surprised against the sunny backdrop of sandy beaches and strong bodies. On her Friday-night-their-Saturday-morning Skype calls to her best friend in Dublin, she kept saying it's actually a lot like "Home and Away". At work, she kept triaging girls younger than her - with short skirts, black eyes, meth habits and photos of toddlers in Knights jumpers on their mobile phones.