elysian-474

Went to the long shore at sundown, and sat in the seagrass to watch the headlights of fishermen's trucks far out on the arm of the bay, and the glint of the trawler vessels on the horizon. A way down the beach from me laid the barnacled remains of a sea turtle that had long lost its flesh to the entropy of the tides, the flies and the saltwater critters. After the night had come in over the waves, I continued north and took the long way back through the access road that winds its way for hours through the salt marshes and paperbark forests, and the popping voice of the cane toads was like applause from the darkness surrounding the dirt track.

A chimpanzee group will attack with lethal force another group venturing into its territory, screaming and charging across the damp soil and flinging themselves through the braches high up in the canopy. Most disturbing here is the aftermath, in which the chimp corpses left behind by the retreating intruders will be torn apart and shared amongst the territorial group. A poignant scene from a documentary: a chimp, sat comfortably between forking branches, calmly munches upon a grisly portion of bloody black-haired flesh. A chimp beside it puts out his hand expectantly and waits and, with an air of casual fellowship, the rest of the portion is

Brick house, bitumen, railway: Heart, skin and bone. The brick house is my heart, where the hair-worn mother does battle with the washing and, with a proud hate, hides the blank surfaces of the fridge behind the grocery receipt and the latest kindergarten masterpiece of her second blood-love. The day is its rushing pulse and night its lull; (a loveless divorce and a hospital bill make for a frightening arrhythmia). In the evening, the television casts glowing shadows across a musty couch, and sets alight the eyes of the neighbour's cat, and the peace is not peace, because it is made of waiting. My bones are the railway