Winter rains. Winter
Sun. Mile after mile wheat fields
Sprout fluorescent green.

You had given up by the 1970s,
Just as I realised the 'art'
in accountancy is to reveal the beauty
in the numbers; and later,
writing contracts for a living,
that 'art' is in the beauty of the words.
Thank you for your verse:
Poetry is in everything,
including business documents,
that captures our imagination.

The past is not what we thought
It was at the time. It is
What we now wish it to be.
It must be thus
If we are to change
Our future.

You know things are past
When they are put in a museum.
Thus the lived present passes
Into history and the architecture
Of the museum declares
The future to the excited
Children who cavort and shout,
Racing from exhibit to exhibit.

There are no words
For that feeling
That precedes tears.
The eyes lose their sparkle
And focus, chin falls, and
Lips tremble.
The loneliness of it all
Seems worse in the crowd
Jostling at the change of lights,
Pedestrians, scooters, cyclists,
Cars turning, ignoring us all
Standing like sheep,
Huddled together for safety.
In this strange city
I have no language to ask
'Are you all right?'
And in the moment of
This thought arising,
That cannot be put into words,
The lights change and the tide
Of the pressing throng turns,
Sweeping us on without
Another thought.

Written in water
On stone path, calligrapher's
Words evaporate.

Did Confucius mean
Literally to set his
Ideas in stone?

Moonlight and gentle breeze
Caress the Great Wall.
Evening star our only companion.
Faintly dogs bark
In the village below.
Through the still night
Distant sounds of straining trucks
And honking horns along
The highway from the provinces,
Driven through the wall
To bring steel to the capital.
One sunset to one sunrise,
In an infinitely repeated cycle.

I wish to acknowledge my sources.
The "ursprung" of the work of art
Brings to mind the source of the Nile,
A field of knee-high grass rippling
In a gentle breeze beneath a clear sky,
Water springs up from the ground
To begin its journey to the sea.
Beyond the hill-crest white turbulent
Clouds rise majestic and threatening,
Carrying moisture borne by the wind
From far away; who knows where
The cycle begins and ends?

You cannot get lost in the bush
Because you are where you are.
Walk in any direction
And you will come out somewhere.
In a film I didn't like at first,
The lead characters are lost
In a swamp searching
For rare orchids; the guide,
The orchid thief, sets up a stick
To find the Sun's shadow,
Musing "It's not about collecting
The thing itself; it's about getting
Immersed in something;
Having it become part of your life;
It's a kind of direction".
Then he knocks over the stick.
There is no shadow to help us.
He and I chose a direction to go,
And it took us away from all that.

A strong north westerly wind
blows out of a clear sky.
Walking this shore of sand
swept high, covering rocky ground,
firm and cool under foot,
brings back memories of last October,
the first swim of summer,
the warming sun, the still-too-cold water.
Long before that, sailing to windward
against a north westerly wind and sea,
plugging away against spray and waves,
seemingly endless, till at last, calm water.
The words of the novel  stop my tracks:
"So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Looking out to sea under today's clear sky,
the sun slowly warms after a swim, likely
the last of this summer, before
our coldest months, wind and showers
sweep in from the southern ocean,
until October comes round again.
The thought warms me, and turning
into the wind and sunshine, I walk
back home along the beach.

All my verses past
And future, glow and shimmer.
Coals in the campfire.

After a hot dry
Summer, rain. Trees produce new
Leaves, toward the sun.
Lying on a bed
Of dried leaves and twigs, bare skin
Absorbs the sun's gift.

Lying, not stretching.
New leaves green above. The sky
Mesmerising blue.

You don't know
what it's like.
You don't know
what it's like.
To love somebody.
To love somebody.
The way I love you.

Shall I speak of love
Or the mosquitos biting
My feet? Nothing helps.

The emergency department of a hospital in an outback town.
The unrelenting gaze of the camera.
We watch a father try to comfort his young son.
Medical science cannot explain the boy's fits; further tests do not help.
The camera repeatedly focuses on the father's hands: rough hands
With dirt under the fingernails
Tenderly trying to comfort the boy.
Another patient, a young man who fell from his motorbike a week ago
And now has constant headaches.
His partner, a young woman wearing a high-viz work shirt, looks into the camera to tell his story; her eyes
Show us her innermost fears.
It turns out he is OK. Not so the elderly
Woman suffering from terminal cancer Who fell and bashed her head.
With good cheer she lets the doctors fix her up
So she can go home. A postscript tells us the cancer later took its expected course.
Time for something more cheery? How about
A documentary about a mass wedding
Performed by the Reverend Moon?
Young people from every continent
Gather to marry people they do not know.
Arranged by parents and the church.
Blessings of peace and love to them.
People submit to the strangest things.

Carving a polystyrene heart.
Turning the white shape,
In hands held close to my chest.
Slicing with the sharp blade,
Suddenly my hands are stained
Scarlet - can a styrene heart bleed?
Just ink on my sweaty hands.
The carved heart takes its place
In a sand mould - vaporised
By molten metal to become
My cold, cast iron, heart.

Book of short stories,
Published 1927. Passed
To my mother by her father,
Then to me. A receipt from
Some forgotten purchase,
From March 2001,
Marks a page, a short story
"The Last Leaf".
The camera pulls back
From a close-up: one defiant vine
Leaf on a snow swept wall,
A sign of hope to the child, near death,
Who gazes on it from her window
In the new day dawning.
The camera pans down
To the ground below; fallen ladder,
Artists brushes and the figure,
Presumed dead, of the has-been artist beneath his last great work.
Eyes water; sniffles won't stop.
Try to think.
Restored faith in altruism?
Distrust of poets and their power?
It all comes crashing down to this -
Mother, father, self.

I think it was Ashbery who said it,
But I've looked high and low
Without finding the source.
Like snow silently falling
While you are sleeping,
Till the tent pole breaks
Under the accumulated weight,
And you struggle outside
Naked in the beauty of the night.
Nature keeps on plugging away
While we are otherwise occupied.

Dry creek, yellow sand.
Add water, hands, dull metal.
Copper bracelet shines.

Flickering candle.
Citronella smells so nice.
Don't feel mozzies bite.

Aluminium
Crank case cover. Fingers
Help bolts find their thread.

Every day the wind
Has erased your footsteps from
The previous day.

Washing off the grime
Of war. Your hesitant smile.
With us forever.

Unseen snow below.
Against the blue sky the burnt
Bleached branches of eucalypts.

I can still hear
My maiden aunt's voice
As she said of my cousin,
'Stephen's a wonder!'
I was envious then,
But that was 50 years ago.
At his funeral the other day
His friends paid tribute
To the man they still call
"The Wonder".

To write a poem
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffic.

Inside my helmet
First my right ear then my left
Asks my mind to scratch.

Bees in clover, feet
Beware. Trees in flower. Taste
Honey in the air.

Beyond my parka
My nose hurts from bitter cold.
Shells crunch under foot.

When I told my kids
One was seen in the car park
My son ran inside.

It takes a long time
To burn out an old tree stump
Aged beyond measure.

The song says I will
Touch you in four places.
Unbearable. Memories.

Is it only a
Poet who can see through her
Tears and keep writing?

It is hard to look your best
When you are dead,
But they don't seem to mind,
With their tears and memories,
And plans for tomorrow
Changed.

Golden light warms
hilltops above our valley.
Campfire smoke rises.

Can the camera and the poet capture
What the mind cannot see?
Is the 'candy cigarette' the voice
Calling the sitter and the viewer alike?
Is it because our number did not
Come up
That we want the voice in McDonald's
'Outside Saigon' to be real?

Fallen leaves piled high.
Rustle crunch kick, footsteps slide.
Why walk around them?

Woken by the unexpected pre-dawn chatter of birds,
From the furthest reaches of the darkness below,
A woman's voice screams
"Who do you fucken think you are?"

Through coconut oil
Sun burns, Sweat beads. Undeterred,
Green ants explore me.

stretching taller than I am,
Muscles tense, breath contracts,
Warmth of the sun rising
Beyond the hill-crest touches
My body facing that way.
Gently the breeze, still cool
From the clear night,
Let's me know what it is
To stand midway, neither
One nor the other.

Sand on my skin, breeze.
Droplets of water, disappear.
Leaving only me.