Jeff Guess

Bags Early 13c. bagge, from Old Norse baggi or a similar Scandinavian source, perhaps ultimately of Celtic origin. After the Japanese bombed Darwin for the rest of the war my father carried all of his air force kit in a grey canvas duffle bag. Afterwards through all my childhood it stood stiffly with silent scars in the far corner of his old shed spilling with last year’s harvest of papershell almonds. Jeff Guess Reflection: Most of us imagine we carry our whole ‘world’ in ou

The junction of North and South Para Rivers in Gawler, South Australia is one of the most sacred sites for the indigenous Kaurna people. Two Rivers the North and South Para rivers – Gawler SA At the end of Gosford Street the reserve is scorched white by summer and the river bed a scalded depression of hot stones. And I am standing at the junction of the North and South Rivers- ghosts of the past are legion apparitions hover at my back. Despite the heat soaked day there is dee

The Wheatsheaf Inn Built 1849 At either end of this old long room below the late secluded Sunday conversation and comforting clatter of crockery and cups two lit fires exchange the secret winks of long association. No table is empty each chair leans into warmth and words outside July clouds at the glass in here hot strong tea bites at the cold and in the grate the red bright coals are flickering full of forgotten faces. Ghosts are between the glances tumbling silently about t

Detective: 1850, short for detective police, from detective (adj.) Private Eye Half a bottle of soft straw single malt I had for Christmas. Half a packet of unfiltered Camels. Night would claim the rest: or morning. She'd been dead six hours when the boyfriend called. Police had charged him. Told me he didn't do it: couldn't afford a lawyer. Sure they'd argued, but twenty six stab wounds; he'd knocked her about a couple of times, but not this. Besides he said he loved her. Tw

Old Stone Wall There’s an old stone wall here probably centuries old that still holds the morning up. Bare vines as thick as my arm still holds something back. Births and deaths, some small joys, the unhappiness of families. Lives laid on lives. This old stone wall mends somethings too this morning it greets me with an astonishing calligraphy of colours that spells ‘welcome’ as if for the first time. Jeff Guess Old stone walls. Fifteenth Street, Gawler, South Australia. ©Jeff

Gawler Railway Station - Nineteenth Street (Completed 1879) Gawler Railway Station (c 1885) Gawler Railway Station (c 1895) Gawler Railway Staff - March 1973 Original Locomotive built by James Martin (c 1890s) Railway Station Early Morning Sun has freed a flock of mottled pigeons from night rafters beneath the station roof now they peck along the iron rails finding between small stones a lean breakfast metal fences, benches and hand rails still wear a thin patina of dew no on

Home: Old English ham ‘dwelling, house, estate, village,’ from Proto-Germanic khaim, Old Norse heimr ‘residence, world,’ heima ‘ home. Cottage - Macedon after the painting by Frederick McCUBBIN (undated) This was the pile of stones you used to see but rarely now. A chimney; a wild pear seeded from the original; a free flowering briar tangling here and there from the one she planted by the window waiting for spring to come in. Now winters have their way and flakes of porcelain

Girl Guides Club - Todd Street, Gawler. Planted by the Mayor, Edward Clement in 1872. Edward Clement's home in Gawler where he planted an identical pine tree that died and was removed in the 1990s. The Para Pine tree in the Girl Guides clubrooms is still growing just adjacent to the then Methodist church in the background of this photograph. NORFOLK ISLAND PINE When the wind swings and catches in the clockwork of their branches clusters of sharp needles spin green fixed spira

Thistles Old English þistel, from Proto Germanic thikhstula, Old High German distil. Thistles All along the rusty railway line from Broadmeadows to Womma the big boll heads of Scotch thistles like an avenging purple army dressed in the fearful armour of their spikes and prickles brash, bold and arrogant lined up in the simple ranks of an elite and primitive custom alert for orders waiting for a word ready for any battle and ready to take on the day. Jeff Guess Reflection: The