One man with two fair ladies near,
They linger where the scents appear.
At Centre Place the shadows fall,
Yet coffee’s warmth unites them all.
The narrow lane with echoes sings,
Of whispered talk and clinking rings.
Three souls await the barista’s art,
A brew to stir both tongue and heart.
Sony A7RV
FE 35mm f1.4 GM
Check out Candid 962
All tables filled, no seat to spare,
Patrons crowd with laughter there.
From Degraves Street the voices rise,
A bustling hum beneath the skies.
Steam of coffee, clatter of plates,
Time suspended as the city waits.
Each corner brims with talk and cheer,
A fleeting world that gathers here.
Sony A7RV
FE 35mm f1.4 GM
Check out Candid 961 and FACE OFF
Two children tumbled, lost in play,
While father’s gaze drifted far away.
An old hack horse with weary eye,
Fixed on the lens as folk passed by.
Beyond, a queue in patient line,
Waited outside the café’s sign.
On Little Flinders, life flowed slow,
A street of stories, soft and low.
Sony A7RV
FE 35mm f1.4 GM
A mural leans upon the wall,
its colours muted into grey.
The street is full
pedestrians flow like sardines,
pressed in rhythm,
their footsteps stitching the lane.
Beneath wide umbrellas,
waiter and patrons linger,
the clatter of plates
mingling with laughter and pause.
Degraves Street breathes—
a café theatre in monochrome,
every figure caught
between shadow and light.
Sony A7RV
FE 35mm f1.4 GM
Check out Candid 952
A city afternoon,
jerseys gather at the table,
voices half-spilled with cutlery.
She stands apart,
hands lit by a private glow,
while the street drifts untoward
all strangers,
stitched for a moment
into monochrome.
Sony A7RV
FE 35mm f1.8 GM
Check out Candid 951
Off De Graves Street,
beneath the laneway’s hush,
a father leans into a table’s comfort,
cap tilted,
tattoo ink coiled upon his leg
like a memory written in skin.
Two boys beside him,
bright in their footy shirts,
shoulders knocking in the smallness of youth,
eyes wide with the ordinary feast.
Plates clatter,
the city breathes around them,
but here
in this narrow corner of Melbourne
a family meal becomes
its own quiet monument.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 938
The sushi shop is closed,
its doors drawn in silence,
though only yesterday
the place was alive with voices
and the scent of rice and sea.
I did not expect its absence,
for it was well loved,
a small refuge on Swanston
where many found their share of comfort.
Two young girls paused before it,
hopeful, then uncertain,
their search for a simple meal
redirected into the city’s restless night.
So it is with such places
they flourish, they fade,
leaving only the memory
of quiet tables,
and familiar flavours gone.
Sony A7RV
FE 35mm f1.4 GM
Check out Candid 936
Four young men in sunlight’s glow,
Chairs set out in a gentle row,
Laughter drifts on the street’s soft hum,
Coffee warms where their voices come.
Sidewalk buzzes, world moves by,
Yet here they sit beneath the sky,
Moments caught in a fleeting scene,
Simple, bright, and quietly keen.
Sony A7RV
FE 135mm 1.8 GM
Check out Candid 933
In a pasta house off DeGraves’ way,
I pause to watch the diners stay;
They line the glass, a living show,
As if on stage for all to know.
Forks lift slow in the window’s frame,
Their laughter soft, their gestures same;
And I, outside, can scarce convey
Why they delight in such display.
Do they not feel the watcher’s eyes,
The passing crowd, the small surmise?
Or is it joy—to see, be seen—
A theatre made of glass between?
Sony A7RV
FE 14mm f1.8 GM
Check out Candid 931 and FACE OFF
At Cucina, just off Collins Street,
a glass window frames the scene
mother and daughter, side by side,
hands curled around warm cups.
Steam drifts upward,
softening their reflections,
while the city hurries past,
its footsteps blurred, unheeding.
Inside, a small island of pause:
their voices low,
woven between sips of coffee,
the sweetness of bond
outlasting the taste of foam.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 926 and FACE OFF
In Collins Arcade, beneath soft light,
an elderly lady leans
elbow on polished table,
her fist a quiet cradle for the cheek
that has weathered many seasons.
She speaks gently,
words spilling like warm tea
to the friend across from her,
another lady bent toward listening,
their laughter a small, rippling hush
against the café’s clatter.
Two lives, long threaded,
rest a while among cups and chatter,
Collins Street flowing beyond the glass,
while time pauses
folded softly between them.
Sony A7RV
FE 35mm f1.4 GM
Check out Candid 924
Beneath soft glow of city light,
Four voices stir the gentle night,
Outside a café, tucked away,
Off La Trobe where shadows play.
Four women laugh with easy grace,
The warmth of friendship on each face,
Their stories drift like jasmine tea,
Infused with calm and memory.
A breeze curls past, the hour late,
Yet still they linger, hearts elate—
Their languages in laughter blend,
Where night and kinship never end.
The city hums its quiet tune,
A silver hush beneath the moon,
While in that moment, clear and true,
The world feels kind and fleeting too.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out
At night, just off LaTrobe’s long line,
Where windows glow with muted shine,
A restaurant hums with quiet grace—
A moment framed in time and place.
Inside, beneath the amber hue,
Where shadows soften every view,
An older woman nears a chair,
With silver thread upon her hair.
She moves with care, yet holds a light
That flickers gently in the night—
As if the years have bowed, not dimmed,
The quiet fire she keeps within.
A table waits—set four, not two—
With linen crisp and glasses dew,
And at its edge, a young man stands,
Delight cupped warmly in his hands.
His eyes are wide with welcome’s gleam,
His smile—a sun caught in a dream.
He greets her not with duty worn,
But joy, unpracticed and reborn.
And in that glance, a thread is tied,
Across the years, the lives, the tide.
No trumpet flares, no passer sees—
But something stirs, as soft as breeze.
For there, beyond the streetlight’s gleam,
Two hearts, in silence, start to dream.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 871 and FACE OFF
From LaTrobe’s spine, a side street bends,
Where city’s edge and evening blends—
And there beneath the sodium light,
A gathering stirs the breath of night.
Outdoor tables, silver-clad,
Hold bowls half-full and glasses glad.
The diners speak in gentle rings,
Their laughter softened, fluttering wings.
But some have left their seats behind,
As if compelled by idle mind;
They drift among the chairs like breeze,
A loosened rhythm, aimless ease.
One lifts a glass, then walks away,
Another stands mid-thought, mid-sway—
As though the street itself might call
To taste the quiet in its thrall.
The waiters weave like ghosts through light,
Their trays afloat in charcoal night,
While overhead, the buildings lean
Like silent elders in between.
No haste, no hush—just human tide
That ebbs through Melbourne’s darker side.
A city’s pulse, low-lit, alive,
Where strangers sit, and stories thrive.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 870
Off LaTrobe Street, where trams glide past
And Melbourne hums its stories fast,
A window holds a quiet frame—
Two figures lit by candle flame.
Night presses soft against the glass,
As strangers in the dark hours pass,
But here, within this warm-lit cave,
A pause—the kind that silence gave.
He leans, his right hand props his face,
Time draped across him, slow and base.
Eyes half-lost in drifting thought,
In words unsaid or battles fought.
She bows her gaze toward the plate,
A woman caught in inward state.
The silver waits, the wine grows thin,
But she has turned somewhere within.
They do not speak; they do not smile—
They sit apart across the tile
Of linen white and shadows low,
Two souls in dinner's afterglow.
Outside, the city does not care,
It flickers, breathes, and fills the air.
But here—a stillness sharp and deep,
Like love that lingers, half-asleep.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 869
On Latrobe Street, where night winds glide,
Three ladies sit on the porch outside.
Their laughter dances in the dusky air,
Beneath soft lamps with gentle stare.
By the bar, where windows breathe—
No glass to shield the night’s cool wreath—
Two ladies linger, drinks in hand,
Their voices hushed like ocean sand.
Melbourne hums a quiet tune,
Neon glow and silver moon.
Five souls in city’s evening gleam,
Framed in a poet’s fleeting dream.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 860
Beneath the glow of Melbourne’s night,
On La Trobe where street lamps light,
A table hums with quiet cheer—
Chinese diners gathered near.
Their laughter soft, their voices low,
As city breezes gently blow.
Pasta twirls on lifted forks,
Steam rising up in fragrant corks.
Chili kissed the olive thread,
While stories in their language spread.
In bowls, a world both new and known—
Tradition met in foreign tone.
The night rolls on, a gentle stream,
Of noodle curls and shared daydream,
Where cultures blend in warm delight,
On La Trobe Street, deep in night.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 859
Off Latrobe Street, where dinners bloom
Beneath the dusk and city’s plume,
An older woman takes her throne
In outdoor chair, yet not alone.
Her voice is clear, the speaker loud,
It cuts between the dining crowd.
She leans with ease, no rush, no care,
Half in the talk, half in the air.
An ear pod rests in her left ear,
A modern thread to someone near.
But still she lets the world all know
The tale she spins, both fast and slow.
Forks are paused, then meals resume,
As laughter swims through twilight's bloom.
Among the chatter, she holds her own—
A queen of talk in her evening zone.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 852
Off Latrobe where city sighs,
a narrow shop in quiet lies.
The signs still blink, but softer now—
night has pressed its cooling brow.
Inside, two figures side by side
share sweet reflections, open-eyed.
A spoon dips slow through colors stacked:
green, red, gold beans gently packed.
"Three Traffic Lights," the menu said—
a playful name for what's been fed
through childhood lanes and summer's heat,
revived here on this quiet street.
The night leans in, the window's gloss
reflects them both in sugared loss,
as if the past had found a way
to join them in their glass parfait.
No need for talk, just taste and glance—
a small dessert, a brief romance
with memory, beneath the glow
of Melbourne’s hush and neon flow.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 849
Off Elizabeth, where neon hums
and tram-line dreams in silence come,
a storefront glows with muted grace,
its glass a veil, its light a face.
Inside, a stillness thick and bare—
few figures sit in twilight's care.
By tiled wall and table’s end,
they dine in hush, like time’s own friends.
Their shadows lean with gentle weight,
as if they’ve paused the hands of fate.
Steam curls soft from bowls held near,
warmth the only sound to hear.
No words disturb the breathing light,
just silhouettes against the night—
their stories hinted, not yet told,
in Melbourne’s chill, in silence bold.
Sony A7RV
FE 50mm f1.2 GM
Check out Candid 848
