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Start Here
Not sure where to begin? Here’s the best way into the blog. The Angle of Attack is a space for poems, prose fragments, and observations—posted once or twice a week. Some pieces are creative, some reflective, and some are most decidedly odd. I think of the blog as a field – a space where ideas…
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Deep Blue Sky
This piece looks back on childhood and a moment of betrayal that resonates forward through time … The summer sun was high in the cornflower blue sky. Tom stumbled down the concrete steps and squinted, scanning for shade. Aluminium benches ran the length of the school building, cool metal against the warm brown brick. It…
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Why I Failed as an Adventure Writer
I had a ton of incredible ideas—and that was the problem. My ideas were so amazingly awesome that the Call of Cthulhu scenario I had written would be a total nightmare for the players, and not in a good way. Tabletop Role-Playing games are immersive, storytelling get-togethers, with players, a game-master, dice, and snacks. Adventures,…
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Flight to Rocky – notes
A flight to Rockhampton, heading straight into the unknown. This one hovers in that limbo where dread and hope coexist. The young female flight attendant smiles shyly before she starts the safety presentation. I’m not sure if she’s embarrassed or enjoys doing it. It looks like both. The older male attendant doing the same thing…
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The Last Sound
This one imagines the quiet unravelling at the very end, when even memory and love are no longer certain. … The last sound they heard was a breath, released. They clung together, she in the pretty dress he bought for her birthday — her warm face buried in his neck. Her body shook, and he…
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Predawn Rowers
A quiet predawn scene—where riversounds, birds, and rowers move in rhythm with the coming light. … It is the predawn, and the riversounds have started. The ferry’s deep thrum as it eases into the dock, and the plaintive cry of the bird I have not bothered to identify. It is a night bird. Soon, when…
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Controlled Descent
A story about holding on when everything seems to be falling apart. It’s one of the more reflective pieces in the field. … I was born here — it’s the only world I’ve ever known, and it’s burning with me in it. Everything is shaking, me most of all. The alarms are all sounding but…
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Nonexistence is Mandatory
This piece is part of a “system-voice” series of poems — written in the language of control, collapse, and doctrine. The voice isn’t human; it’s the system thinking aloud. … The enemy is ever-present, its design is to kill, And its means is through the sowing of chaos, for It is through chaos that Order…
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On Saturday
A quiet morning run by the river—before the city fully wakes up … On Saturday I went for a run—It was still dark, and the river lappedGently on the shore. It was high tide, soThe mangrove stink had not yet risen, butI knew it would.When the sky lightened, the birds started upAnd things moved pretty…
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Stuck Out the Back
This one is about an ordinary moment that wasn’t ordinary at all—a brief encounter with something that couldn’t be unseen … The shop smells of antiseptic and meat. Beyond the translucent plastic door is the workroom floor with banks of noisy machines. One of them goes quiet, and there is a worker, all in white,…
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Survival is Order
This piece is part of a “system-voice” series of poems — written in the language of control, collapse, and doctrine. The voice isn’t human; it’s the system thinking aloud. … The natural state of the world is chaos, entropyReduces all systems to decay, but the enemy does notSleep—to surrender is death, and the only means…
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In Denpasar
A memory that starts clearly enough, then begins to fracture—voices overlapping until they’re impossible to separate. … We were in Denpasar, in a nice hotel. Itwas Christmas and, there in the dining room,Christmas music was playing for rich Indonesianseating breakfast. The songs were filled withobscenities. Nobody had any idea. It was glorious. You said: why…
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Holding Pattern
… We’re still up in the air. … There are issues with the landing gear. There’s a fuel leak, but it’s not a bad one, they say, and the pilot’s lost his glasses but he’s really competent. … Sooner or later, we’ll land, but We don’t know when. … This piece part of the hospital…
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Sisyphus and the Sun
The first of two poems set beneath an unrelenting sun, where strength meets something that will not move. … Here, in this place, the sun watches all — The dry earth, a hard bed, and the trees that cast no shade, and do not wish to. None of that matters, for I am strong, and…