Well, my second publication - Devil In The Wind - is finally completed in book form and has just been uploaded for pre-order on Amazon. Wonderful, wonderful. Below is an extract from the opening of the collection:
oh my darling
the devil is in the wind
crying
roaring
swallowing sound
with every tongue
that licks to taste
the grass and trees
well
we could really only watch
it came down the hill
on both sides
and from behind us
four ways at once
it speaks
to you
it speaks to you
in tongues
my darling
the embers
were like an uzi
firing through every crack
doors
windows
skylights in the ceiling
if you were putting them out
at the top of the door
they swarmed in at the bottom
it was like a live thing
The collection will be available as an e-book and I am currently inviting/offering advance reading copies of the e-book, in the hope (no obligation) that readers might be prepared to place an honest review of the book on Amazon or Goodreads or any of the other places it might be listed for sale.
Please send me an email if you might be interested. I\'d love to have you involved.
Want to see the book at the Zon? Check here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/097514426X
I\'ll leave you with another fire poem. This one from our 2003 fires.
and now it is Mount Buffalo in the air
I can taste it
Victoria is an inferno and the remnants
from an acreage devoured
have shrouded the city
like a foul smelling blanket
that is the remnant of land
of all that is good
gone
black and dying
and in the town where I grew
the hills and valleys are alight
from the house on Last Street
you can see naked flame
glowing crown-like across tree-tops
red-licking toward sky
bedeviled crimson
embers on the rise
float closer
maybe near enough to singe
the cricket pitch
where Zim Evans batted
while I bowled
and I don\'t think
it can ever be
the way it was
my childhood
is on fire
it is in the taste
of my air
~