Melbourne Candid Series #1231 Flagstaff Garden

 

In Flagstaff’s hush of passing days,
He moves mid-step, half flesh, half sign,
A skull drawn light upon his face,
Death borrowing a mortal line.

A crown of blooms, a lifted phone,
The living world still calls him near;
Between the laugh, the bone, the tone,
He walks where joy and ending peer.

So gardens keep what crowds forget:
That life, well held, is brief, complete
A dance inked once, not finished yet,
Then gone, like footprints in the street.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Check out Candid 1077

Melbourne Candid Series 1230 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath bare trees of Flagstaff green,
They stand in chalked and petalled white,
Small skulls that smile where life is seen,
Soft laughter stitched to borrowed night.

Flowers crown both young and old,
Bone and blossom intertwined;
In painted death, the living hold
A gentler truth: we leave, we shine.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Check out Candid 1076

Melbourne Candid Series #1229 Lonsdale St

 

At Lonsdale’s light he waits, wheels held fast,
A small, still figure in the city’s flow;
Engines hum, impatient shadows pass,
While time itself turns amber, then lets go.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1075

Melbourne Candid Series #1228 Lonsdale St

 

On Lonsdale Street he pauses, black-clad and bowed,
A silvered arch of hat against the day;
Bone-stitched trousers whisper as he goes,
Steel wheels mark time where traffic has its say.

Between the rush, he stands—old ritual kept—
A lone, dark note the city has not swept.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1074 and FACE OFF

Melbourne Candid Series #1227 Flagstaff Garden

 

In Flagstaff Garden’s tempered light
He turns, a shield against the air;
Feathers arc like frozen flame,
And silence gathers at his stance.

The city blurs to watching eyes,
Its hours loosen, briefly stilled.
Old rhythms press through modern ground,
And grass remembers older feet.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

check out Candid 1073

Melbourne Candid Series #1226 Flagstaff Garden

 

In Flagstaff Garden’s measured green,
He stands where time has folded thin:
A shield of feathers, round and bright,
A painted face of dusk and bone.

The crowd recedes to murmured breath,
As ancient steps reclaim the ground.
Between the trees, the city pauses
And listens to a deeper sound.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1072

Melbourne Candid Series #1225 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath Flagstaff’s elms, where the city exhales,
A drumbeat rises through clipped lawns and stone.
Feathers tremble against the patient air,
Shells speak softly with each lifted step.

One foot strikes earth, the other greets the sky
A brief defiance held in muscle and breath.
Painted faces carry borrowed suns,
Old gods walking between lunch hours and trams.

The crowd stands still, as if remembering
That this ground once answered only ceremony.
For a moment, time loosens its modern grip,
And Flagstaff Garden listens, wholly awake.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1071

Melbourne Candid Series #1224 Flagstaff Garden

 

In Flagstaff Garden’s quiet, watched by stone and leaf,
They stand in measured ranks, adorned with borrowed grief.
Feathers pierce the daylight, masks of ash and bone,
Ancient rites rehearsed where city seeds are sown.

A drumbeat lingers faintly on the Melbourne air
Past and present pausing, solemn, brief, and fair.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1070

Melbourne Candid Series #1223 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath Flagstaff’s plane trees, in a borrowed age,
They move like echoes freed from stone and page.
Feathers crown the brow, bone-white masks declare
The dance of life with death entwined in air.

Drums speak softly where the grass is worn,
Old worlds awaken in the Melbourne morn.
Between the paths, where past and present meet,
Ritual breathes again on urban feet.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1069

Melbourne Candid Series #1222 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath the elms of Flagstaff’s quiet green,
Where iron paths and city breath convene,
A humble cart stands fast against the day,
Its banner worn, yet bold in painted say.

Here hands move swift in practised, patient art,
As if the world were measured by each part:
The folded board, the steam, the passing plate,
The pause between the hunger and its sate.

No throne nor marble marks this common ground,
Yet here the pulse of living may be found.
A coin, a glance, a nod—no words are sworn,
But something older than the park is born.

The vendors stand like figures in a frieze,
Intent, composed, untouched by passing breeze;
While waiting souls, half-lit by noon’s mild glare,
Lift hands as though in secular prayer.

O Flagstaff lawn, you cradle more than rest:
Within your shade, the world is briefly blessed
Where labour, need, and simple grace align,
And daily bread is shared like sacred wine.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1068

Melbourne Candid Series #1221 Flagstaff Garden

 

Along the gravel paths of Flagstaff’s green,
Where summer fairs dissolve in muted sound,
He walks alone, though never quite unseen,
A fixed point while the crowd moves all around.

Dark lenses guard his eyes from open view,
As if the day were brighter than it seems;
His gaze turned inward, thoughtful, stern, and true,
Attentive more to weight than passing gleams.
The checked shirt hangs with workman’s quiet ease,
Plain cloth that knows the language of the day,
Unbothered by the tents, the hum, the breeze,
Or idle talk that drifts and slips away.

Behind him, faces blur to softened shade,
Their gestures half-considered, quickly spent;
They come and go like marks the feet have made
Upon the grass, erased as soon as meant.
Yet he remains, a figure set in pause,
As though the moment asked him to endure
A witness to no spectacle or cause,
But simply to the act of being sure.

Thus Flagstaff Gardens keeps him in its care
Not hero, nor observer raised above,
But one still centre in the breathing air,
Where crowds pass on, and solitude holds love.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1067

Melbourne Candid Series #1220 Flagstaff Garden

 

Within Flagstaff Gardens’ measured green repose,
Where time slows softly on the open lawn,
A lone man stands, while all around him flows
The idle hour of an unhurried dawn.

He lifts his lens as though it were an eye
More patient than the pulse within his hand,
To catch the fleeting truth that passes by
And bind it fast at his quiet command.
The crowd recedes; the background hums and blurs
A distant murmur, casual and kind
While through the glass the present moment stirs,
Briefly obedient to the watching mind.

Behind him, seated low upon the grass,
Two figures share their bread, their drink, their pause;
They speak in gestures moments let slip past,
Unaware they serve a subtler cause.
Their ease becomes the counterpoint of art,
The stillness framing movement, thought, and aim;
For life, unposed, plays always its own part,
And needs no witness calling out its name.

Thus Flagstaff Gardens holds them all at once:
The watcher, watched, the careless, and the keen
A living page where nothing is announced,
Yet everything is quietly seen.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1067

Melbourne Candid Series #1219 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath the elms of Flagstaff’s quiet green,
Where Melbourne’s towers soften into air,
They stand—half flesh, half legend—newly seen,
With painted bone and borrowed mortal stare.

The woman wears her roses like a crown,
Dark petals braided through her careful hair;
Her eyes, ringed deep as though the grave looked out,
Hold life intact, alert, and fully there.
Lace sleeves recall a gentler, older age,
When mourning dressed in patience, not in haste,
And grief was stitched with ritual and grace,
Not hidden, hurried, or politely faced.

Beside her stands the man in hat and beard,
His smile a crease time cannot quite erase;
White shirt, black brace, a bloom upon his chest
A gardener of memory and place.
His painted skull does not deny the heart,
But frames it, like a memento made to teach
That love survives the narrowing of breath,
And meaning outlives what words can ever reach.

Before them, small as any human hope,
A child in bones that merely play at death
Licks sugar from a stick, amused, unafraid,
Proving joy needs neither depth nor breadth.
The skull upon his face is only art;
His living pulse corrects the borrowed lie.
Here death is costume, not a closing door,
A story told so life may answer: why.

And Flagstaff Gardens listens, old and kind
Once burial ground, now cradle of the day
Holding the past and present intertwined,
Where ghosts and children learn to share the way.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1066 and FACE OFF

Melbourne Candid Series #1218 Swanston St

 

On Swanston Street, she walks
through a river of passing hours,
headphones sealing a private weather
against the city’s noise.

The traffic lights blink and wait,
faces blur into motion,
but she moves with a measured resolve,
eyes forward, unborrowed.

An illustrated gaze stares from her jumper,
another world layered over this one—
ink and fabric carrying a story
the street will never fully hear.

Wind lifts her hair like a half-spoken thought,
boots meet pavement in quiet defiance,
and for a moment the city bends around her,
letting her pass,
untranslated.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1065

Melbourne Candid Series #1217 Flagstaff Garden

 

In Flagstaff Gardens, beneath a pale afternoon sky,
stillness gathers around a painted face.
White curves cradle shadowed eyes,
not to conceal, but to declare
a quiet becoming.

Hands hover nearby, mid-gesture,
as if the air itself is shaping him,
layer by layer, breath by breath.
The city murmurs beyond the lawn,
but here, time pauses.

Ink crosses skin like memory,
a hoodie soft against ritual paint,
the ordinary and the ceremonial
meeting without apology.

He waits—not passive, not fragile
but steady, offering his profile
to transformation,
while the garden holds its breath
and listens.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1064

Melbourne Candid Series #1216 Flagstaff Garden

 

He stands as if the world were hushed,
Both palms enclosing breath and seed;
Bright metal stills his lifted chest,
While time obeys a measured creed.

Around him murmurs crowd and day,
Yet in his gaze the moment stays
A single rite in open air,
Performed where passing hours fade.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1063

Melbourne Candid Series #1215 Flagstaff Garden

 

She bows where trampled grass lies still,
A crown of feathers cuts the air;
Her gaze is drawn to depths below
Where silence learns the shape of prayer.

The crowd recedes to shadowed blur,
Their modern breath held soft and thin;
In her slow hands, the world grows old,
And ancient rhythms enter in.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1062

Melbourne Candid Series #1214 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath the plane trees of Flagstaff’s green,
Where noon stands hushed in silver air,
A dancer lifts his measured limb
And time is held within the square.

Feathers crown his brow with fire,
Painted eyes remember suns
That rose on temples, drums, and dust
Before these lawns and city runs.

A shield of light, a mirrored round,
Catches sky and watching face;
Each step resounds with older ground,
Each pause a vow of measured grace.

Around him sits the modern crowd,
In jackets, lenses, murmured breath;
Yet he stands carved from ritual,
Defying clocks, deferring death.

So art returns where grass is trod,
And strangers learn, though briefly, how
A body speaks what books forget:
That past and present share one now.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1061

Melbourne Candid Series #1213 Flagstaff Garden

 

Within Flagstaff’s green, where ancient echoes stir,
Three women turn in measured, sacred grace;
Their regalia blooms with rhythm, thread, and fur,
Each step a vow time cannot quite erase.

They dance the rite of sun and seasoned ground,
Of maize and wind, of promise dearly kept;
The earth remembers every lifted sound,
Each heel that strikes where ancestors once stepped.

Beside them moves a lone and painted man,
His face in white, a mask of dread and lore;
Eyes dark as night that watches over clan,
A guardian shaped by fear and mythic war.

Not terror, but the threshold he declares
Between the living pulse and spirit’s claim;
His steps command the air, the crowd, the stares,
And teach that awe and reverence are the same.

So in that garden, far from native land,
Old worlds arose at drumbeat’s urgent plea;
Through flesh and cloth and stamp of human hand,
The past stood up and danced itself still free.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1060

Melbourne Candid Series 1212 Flagstaff Garden

 

Beneath the plane trees’ hush in Flagstaff’s square,
A youth stands caught in time’s deliberate pause;
His glasses catch the pale, indifferent air,
While shadow softens feature, line, and cause.

In profile turned, he faces leftward thought,
As though the past had called him by his name;
One hand bears modern fire, so lightly sought,
A glowing screen within a world of shade.

The strapbag rests like ballast at his side,
A pilgrim’s satchel for the urban age,
Where messages and moments coincide
And private futures wait on public page.

Monochrome renders youth both near and far,
Stripped of the colour of immediacy;
He stands a figure etched by light and spar,
Between the now and what he yet may be.

O still-born instant, keep him thus inclined
Half-bound to earth, half-listening to mind.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Check out Candid 1059