
I have shown below books of which I have been editor, co-editor or solo poet. Please see the Publications Page for details of my poetry which has been published in numerous other places including newspapers, academic journals, anthologies, books, magazines and on the Internet.
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2023 Available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon for $25 USD includes postage

2022 Available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon for $23 USD includes postage
 2016 Available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon for $15 USD includes postage |
This the eighth book in our Australian-Indian poetry series
published by Cyberwit. The previous anthologies are: Poetic Connections: Poems From Australia and India, (Lonsdale); Building Bridges: Poems From Australia and
India, (Harle); Voices Across The
Ocean: Poems From Australia and India, (Harle & Sarangi); Homeward Bound: Poems From Australia and
India (Sarangi & Harle); The
Land: Poems From Australia and India (Sarangi & Harle) Searching For the Sublime (Sarangi &
Harle). All these books are still in
print and available from www.cyberwit.net, Amazon and other online booksellers.
The Blazing Furnace
The void of nature’s womb is flowering
separation – coagulation - transubstantiation
impossibility has no meaning in the blazing furnace,
years of toil attending the fire
years of misunderstanding fall away,
salt – mercury - sulphur
the foundations of The Stone
align in dynamic equilibrium,
settling happily in the ethereal vessel.
The silicone Messiah is knocking
pulsing down society’s mind
tempting the slickest-stained-clones
bolstering the gallows of capitalism
tensioning the fractured face of stress.
Young generations grow syntactically sharp
believing the great false prophets
dripping with aborted foetuses of greed,
their lies glide past the wise
and dissolve into the blackness of eternity.
The vessel is still,
the perfect marriage consummated,
all is calm in the dull orange reduction.
The womb-like furnace has reached parturition
the blazing reducing to a glow of universal knowing,
dancing on the landscape of hope
avoiding the tangled bird netting of delusion,
soaring outwards
like invisible ripples on the pond
the fluid flowing sea of existence,
The Stone is ready!
Winds Of Infinity
The
key turns in the rusting lock and
dreams drop to the ground like
rotting dying leaves, the
grit of aeons – persistent grinds
the leaves to dust then
the winds of infinity, like
the ever present illusion of time drifts
the dust back home, home
to the great Ocean of Being the prima materia – mother of all.
The
distillation and coagulation begins,
slowly the dust merges
forming the balsam of life
and new dreams incarnate to inspire
the dreamer.
Veils of illusion spread
seducing the unwary with fantasies of permanence,
the coagulation proceeds in the great crucible,
bringer of life,
the Sun’s fire brings forth a million manifestations
solid, real, immortal?
Deceptively for a measured minute!
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 2016 Available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon for $15 USD includes postage |
The Long Search
Through
and through he denied his atheisms even though the dust gently covered his feet, pre-adapting bargains in the spiritual marketplace where you always “pay too much for gold” he fell into stupefaction blindly obeying all the gurus, the exponential abstractionists false prophets dripping with fool's gold.
Desiring to demolish ingrained gospels by deconstructing a deluded following mind, play-land zones of decontamination he always failed, but still the dynamic dust danced at his feet.
He prayed in desperation till his knees were crumpled, he sat cross-legged till his knees seized, he circumambulated every shrine till he fell into the humble dust, exhausted
mind spinning in disorientation.
Born-again, he lashed out like a cyclone hitting land, preaching with uncontrollable passion gathering blind sheep around him flogging them with raging lies threatening them with invisible, impossible retribution as they sat in the warm dust, riddled with fear.
Reaching the summit of a sacred mountain he shouted in violent impatience “Where are you Lord?” the chill wind screamed in his ears casting sharp dust into his watering eyes, dropping to his crumpled burning knees he ran his aching shaking hand
through the dust, then like a shotgun-filled moment of tension, he understood.
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 2015 Available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon for $15 USD includes postage |
The Old Man and The
Vineyard
The
ghost of the old man moves slowly, faltering
in slow motion through
the derelict Dionysian landscape, disorientated,
drunk-like trying
to prune the vines trying
to lift the fallen bird netting. An
ethereal vigneron smoky-white, no
match for the permanence of red earth the
terror of Terra Firma Terminus, the
hardness, the unrelenting power of reality. And
the ghost's tear falls to the powder-dry ground the
brutality of dust to dust - unforgiving blackness.
Immaculate
garden traces vegetables
in abundance the
bird netting neat, secure well
tended vines trimmed,
tied evidence
of passion and care are
dying, the
old man is dead, Understand
This! The
old man is dead!
tWhat
of this year's vintage howling
into an empty glass for
a drop of life? The
Bacchae need sustenance to
rejoin body and spirit to
dance on Mount Cithaeron in
the way of antiquity. Untrimmed
tendrils reach out grabbing
at the netting of decay a
desperate last effort for a living.
Was
it all for nothing? no
one left to continue the care no
one to celebrate his passion for wine, and
joy, to
share a glass to
share a memory to
be authentic in a world of superficial gloss. Another
living treasure, quiet
and alone has returned forever to
the particles of dirt in
which he lived and loved.
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 2015 Available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon for $15 USD includes postage |
Had Things Been Different
Headlights glare then fade into
coldness a young man no, Christ he's still a boy shivers with emptiness, alone and lonely empty for a kindness to ease his pain.
His roof for the night, a freeway overpass stark lifeless concrete grey, curling tight in the corner an embryo in the dirt he aches for warmth aches for someone to understand.
Sleep yields confused dreams hell, heaven he can't remember, he grasps at the morning sun feeling to thaw his frozen heart the careless breeze drifts the delicate rays away, head down he walks hard maybe someone in the city......
Below the mighty steel-grey
bridge a loving harbour glistens, if only things had been different broken family, booze - you know, might of been on his way to university medicine, science, the humanities, he knew all about humanity.
The sun catches his eye as a
tear falls mesmerised he watches it fade below falling, falling, if only things had been different. the harbour beckons Come Come to me. A gentle pull sets him free floating downwards floating, floating, he becomes an autumn leaf, the harbour accepts him freely no questions, no platitudes.
Workers trample for seats on
their train cars coalesce forming another daily nightmare, Executives full of breakfast and self-importance listen to the morning news.
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 2014 Available from Authorspress for $30 USD includes postage |
Lone Vigil
Keeping a lone vigil the mermaid waits for his return, her mesmerising melodies cascading watching the ever changing sea, the calmness of an aqua mirror morphing into violent avalanches of foam. Great spiritual magnet pulls the devoted closer, but destroys the careless. The lure is enticing a baptismal font of enigmatic blue, where communion brings renewal. Promises of rebirth resound in the intoxicating silver salt spray dancing in the soothing breeze lifting the spirit to heavenly heights, careening in the sounds of pulsing waves as they caress the tidal zone, the gateway from material to spiritual. This transition realm a deep and taunting mystery an arcana of veils, a gateway holding many secrets, the key to their revealing is the locksmith of universal love.
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 2014 Available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon for $15 USD includes postage
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Sandgate
Flanked
by a nightmare furious highway beside
a forbidding green-brown river the
bodies that built - “Our Town” lie
still and shivering. Graves
stretch in an endless mirage like
red-brown autumn leaves neatly
lying in rows, facing
East at the Sandgate. Waiting!
But
the gates are closed, locked
solid - topped with rusting razor wire, the
furnaces deathly cold, industrial
detritus abandoned rusting
into a deep red-brown, pipes,
tanks and twisted iron monuments
left by the “Big Australian.”
A
town built by “little” Australians, decent,
honest and proud steel-town-tough
– but, not
tough enough to cheat mortality, their
invisible masters lurking
in stock exchange tabernacles hiding
in locked board rooms, now
long gone.
To
rest in peace, the
wages of a well lived life a
steadfast promise of death is
cheated here. The
ferocious screeching traffic mindless
of the sanctity of the Sandgate, incessant
'till the witching hour agitates
the bones of the autumn leaves, as
they wait for eternity and peace.
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 2013 Available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon for $15 USD includes postage |
The
Colour Of Greed
Paint
the colour of greed, a
sickly phosphorescent yellow-green rising
from the foetid waters, a
burning acrid colour – deadly. More
gas wells are drilled, more
corruption fuels more corruption anonymous
investors burn with greed a
yellow-green poison mists over the land a
land in the tremors of dying, the
frogs and lizards long gone. As a
child I drank the water pure, flowing
through forests of energy in
streams through fields of swaying grass. What
do I tell the children? How
would Monet paint the colour of greed? How
do I explain democracy – a deception? What
is majority consensus – a bad joke? How
do I paint the politician's auras tinged with black, glowing
with sickly yellow-green? Farmers
and mothers and greenies – unite, forging
deep connections, a
solidarity for sustainability. Yet
still the yellow-green-black politicians lie their
deceptions the manifestation of cancerous evil, Dear
children - I am so sorry!
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 2013 Available from Authorspress for $30 USD includes postage
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Logic’s Thin Disguise
Professional exorcists grinning sway to
rhythms of primal harmonies laughing
loudly to discharge the tension as the clouds
cover the dangerous moon They recite
the old magician's almanac the rotting
pages fall like shards, as you listen
to the sudden silence you realise
even choice is an illusion draped in
logic's thin disguise.
The shadows all wear lipstick to hide their
masks of pity only powder
white - you look like them, and even
though you hate them they still
control your mind. Kneeling
easily at the altar of ecstasy bits of
perfumed flesh and bone penetrate the
darkness of your tongue as the world
turns, your thoughts burn and the slaves
of passion perish.
You have paralysed yourself with beauty thinking
creation knows no end but the lost
artist runs naked across the
landscape of your soul sketching you,
that evil's night is more
desirable than virtue's day. The canvas
writhes with flying archetypes as fate and
free will crash, only your
tortured lips can save the world so you discuss
philosophy through the night then read
about your Daguerreotype of death stained in
black across the morning paper.
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 2013 Available from Cyberwit.net or Amazon for $15 USD includes postage
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 2012 Available from Spinning Spider Publications or the author $15 AUD includes postage
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Growing Old (Time)
Nature sends forth its illusions, the moon casts her silent glow as silhouettes dance and sing. With your words never forget time, never tarry too long for stagnation breeds stagnation and time will never let you forget. Ride the rain, travel swiftly to the sea follow the heart of the wind. Old human vessels sail slowly, sometimes silently, egos are the only terminal events in
history and dissolve when the river becomes
the sea.
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 1996 Spinning Spider Publications Out of Print |
Scratches and Deeper Wounds
The hot bread shop breathes
warm fragrance of yeast and crust
awakening a primal urge,
a step or two
more temptations tease
coffee shop seduction
flat white, short black
cappuccino cream
the Choice is yours.
The balmy first flesh of spring
awakens other primal urges,
everywhere temptation
false hopes for new life,
temporary appeasement of deeper needs.
Stand clear, fuck, stand clear
four pall bearers frantic,
push past,
oblivious to piercing eyes,
oblivious to the stray dog
pissing on a post.
Her thin pale body,
lies motionless,
silent
flat upon the canvas stretcher,
O.D'd, indeed.
Is she breathing?
Yes, I think
hurry, hurry,
hospital seems so far,
her bearers,
barely friends
accomplices in street life hype
full of fear and flight and fight,
and hope; hurry.
Homeless, hopeless
street tough, street wise
some not wise enough to stay alive,
stand crying in the street.
The mourning penetrates their mask,
as secrets of their heart and care
flow down the gravel verge
and stain society's slate.
Her morning hit,
a simple scratch
has turned into a deeper wound.
As silent witness to this scene
of rage and life and love
I watched her die,
and wondered why
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