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I see the photo in the paper— The Herald, 26th September, '79: bold letters decree, "Spectators restricted— twenty-four cans each at the Melbourne Cricket Ground."A window to the day when lawmakers perfected the fine art of saving you from yourself— refining freedom, pressing it into cheap conformity. Society laid morality atop absurd law, social media spread it like gospel to the desperate flock.Instead of shouting "stop," you open the door— beckon Big Brother with a smile.A trip to the MCG now— queuing for a single light beer, one grim can at a time, barely a murmur. You are protected, protected from yourself, by a loving government.Now, we celebrate rules, impose them on others— personal tastes dressed as public interest.Because one old woman finds drunks unsightly, feels they invade space, we strip their right to drink.And if that’s so, let drunks band together, declare poetry unproductive, ban it for national efficiency.

Mother State

Sterling, you’re the boy with a sunburned neck, squinting under the midday Queensland sky, while the golfers around you mumble about the weight of irons and drivers; and you nod, not listening, because you’re watching the way the wealthy drift by like clouds that have no need to rain on anybody. Then there’s Killian; hair like sunlit water, laughter like the rustle of leaves on the club’s big oak. She breezes past in her crisp clothes, her teenage certainty, her tan arms gleaming, and you, a kid of grocery store aisles and long hours caddying, think, Ah, that is what life could be. Fast forward—there’s you in a suit, grinning too wide, clutching the keys to a car too expensive, an apartment with a view, a wine glass that never leaves your hand. And every polished floor, every glittering river of Brisbane at night is just you, still trying to make that distance between you and her a little smaller. And one night, she returns; older, yes, but with that same gleam, the boldness you’d first seen by the golf course, and she leans close, laughing about “the good old days,” as if she’d always known what this meant to you. She leaves, of course. Killian always did. Off to Melbourne, or was it the Gold Coast this time? It hardly matters. Because you’d be there waiting again, feeling the hollow place in your chest fill up briefly like an empty tin can that catches the rain. And then, news of her; Killian, settled in suburbia, a husband with dirty hands, children with skinned knees, a garden of flowers that need watering. You picture her, the Killian who once held a room like a small sun, now clinking mugs of coffee with her husband as the sun rises over a modest backyard. So here you are, fingertips cold against the river railing, watching the city lights flicker like stars on water. And you finally see her for what she was; not a woman, really, but a life you wanted to live, a mirage that drifted in and out, leaving only the faint, mocking echo of laughter on a golf course. FSF

A winters dream

Life ain’t nothin’ but the grind of habit, the same weed bunts, same whiskey mornings, each drag a line etched in the ledger of your soul. It's the push and pull of moments— those tired bones rolling out of bed, your boots scraping the pavement of another day.But habits alone? No, it’s the gut-punch actions that matter, the swing you throw, the woman you chase, the job you quit without a goddamn plan. It’s your habit’s bastard offspring, born from repetition and fired by chaos, each step shaped by the unpredictable slap of reality, the external factors—the rains that drown, the sun that blinds, and the love that burns.And then there’s belief— the crooked lens through which you see the whole rotten show. It's the lie you tell yourself just to keep moving, or the truth you cling to when the night grows too cold. Belief takes your habits, twists 'em, makes you think you can do better than you did yesterday, or makes you sure you can’t.But the big joke is physics— the final line you can't cross. The goddamn boundaries you were born into, the way your fist feels like nothing against a brick wall, the way dreams crash down at the speed of gravity. It’s the cruel math of the universe: all your efforts, all your intentions, slammed against the hard rules of this indifferent cosmos.So here’s the sum: it’s two times your habits, soaked in the sweat of action, multiplied by the lies you believe, and all of it held down by gravity, by death, by inevitability. The formula of existence isn’t elegant— it’s messy, it's cruel, and it's got whiskey on its breath. But goddamn, it's life, and it's all you've got.

The sum of it all

I have always been terrified of good advice, For by my nature, I do the opposite - never precise. This makes me the perfect one to judge it well, For I’ve learned its worth where regrets dwell. Once, I was told: “Don’t go to the ECCA show, The flu is bad this year, as the snotty bogan kids know, They spread sickness like a rogue 5G beam, You’ll be sick for a month, a nightmare, not a dream.” I went. I caught Influenza A, And Whooping cough, too, I’m sorry to say. Sick for three months, in my stubborn vice, &nbsp;Proving that not going was indeed quality advice. <h3>F.S.F.</h3>

My methodology for weighing advice

Election day again. Queensland stumbles, a fool’s democracy— too damn hard, too goddamn unrewarding for anyone with fire to rise up, to make this place better. Politics here ain’t fierce, ain’t fierce enough— democracy should be a cage fight, sharp teeth and grit. Ideas should dance or die, succeed or burn out. It should pull you in, make you want it. Kids should have politicians on posters, right there next to rock stars and footballers. The whole deal should throb with passion, represent every face, every street, every corner. But no— what’ve we got? A tired, grey lineup: the empathy-dead party, the union cronies, the eco-huggers bent on rubbing trees back to the stone age, and the lone nutter with a joint in one hand and a rifle in the other— because why the hell not? I'm saying— enough of this. Let’s aim for a hundred parties, not two-and-a-half. Let’s make this cutthroat, make leadership glamorous. Show the world how to lead, by sheer will. It’s already broken, all it takes is guts, is fire, is balls. So do it.

Election Day

&nbsp; Brisbane, 2156. This city gave up on trees like a bad habit. It just kept stacking concrete on concrete, trying to drown out the sky. Nature? Illegal now. Real plants are contraband, the kind of thing you'd find in a smuggler’s pocket, wedged between pills and regret. What we’ve got instead are these fake trees, metal skeletons that buzz and flicker, trying too damn hard to look alive. The Wardens prowl like lost dogs with a taste for blood, clad in iron, as if remorse was something you could wear. Their job is to crush anything that dares to be soft. No flowers, no ferns, no grass you can run your hands through. Nothing that remembers what rain feels like. But then there’s this kid, Libby. Not tall enough to look anyone in the eye, but stubborn enough to try. She finds a seed in the pavement, just a speck, something most people would piss on and forget. But not Libby. She picks it up like a secret, holds it close like a promise she doesn’t trust herself to make. She kneels down, shoves it into the dirt— what little’s left of it— and gives it her water rations. One drop, then another, like it’s a prayer nobody’s listening to. And suddenly, it’s not just a seed anymore; it’s a middle finger to the whole damn city. The thing starts to grow, a spindly sprout that shakes like a drunk trying to get to his feet. And the people— they notice, then they cling, like they’ve finally remembered they’ve got lungs. Resilience here is like a bad joke, but it’s the only one worth telling. And right on cue, the Wardens show up, all heavy boots and bad breath, grunting “Step aside,” like they’re tired of hearing their own voices. But Libby? She doesn’t budge. “It’s ours,” she spits, like she actually believes it. The crowd grows behind her, a mess of dirty faces and hollow eyes, all of them pretending not to be afraid. It’s ridiculous, really— protecting a sapling like it’s the last slice of bread in a starving city. But then again, what’s more ridiculous than banning nature? Resilience here isn’t poetic. It’s not heroic, either. It’s a grim, stupid urge that says, “I’m not done yet,” even when everything tastes like rust. The sun still sets between these glass towers, casting shadows that linger like a hangover. And that sapling— awkward, ugly, roots clinging to cracked pavement like it’s got nowhere else to be. And if you stand there long enough, just long enough to forget how serious the world is, you might hear it— Libby’s laugh, rough and unexpected, like a punchline to a joke nobody wanted to tell. &nbsp;

Writing, Poems and Rants

Mother State

A winters dream

The sum of it all

My methodology for weighing advice

Election Day

Resilience