Heart Wood contains twenty poems selected from those written over a decade of poetry writing. The poems chart a journey, and describe and celebrate a life, friends, the world we live in.

The cover image is by Warrington artist Maria Mackay

Heart Wood

A vessel, a cup,
rough-hewn from heart wood;
and full of water:
clear, from a mountain spring.

As I slake my thirs
tI can smell the fragrance
of fresh-cut resin

I can feel on my lips
the rough kisses
the blade gave the wood;
taste the sweetness of underground,
the cool of mountain.

It took a tree, a spring.
It took the simple tools of a carpenter.
It took the heartfulnes of a maker
to bring the tree, the spring, my thirst,
you and me,

into a joyful moment
of perfect unity.

I raise my cup.
I give you a toast:
To life!
To love’s mystery!

Heartwood was my first poetry book.I wanted a simple but classy look for a poetry book, that wasn’t too expensive to produce and could be done in small quantities and reprinted easily.

This is printed with a photocopier on quality paper. The cover is light card and the cover image has been printed on self adhesive. The book is stapled and a leather strip has been added to the spine to cover the staples.

Gulls in autumn

A flock of black-backed gulls
has moved into their winter quarters in the bay.

I saw a group arrive this morning
striding silently across the sky,
wing-tip to wing-tip in a straight black line.

Up high, where the air is moving with aggressive certainty
they practice their manoeuvres:
climbing, dipping, wheeling, gliding
with wings rigidly extended:
uniformly, crisply, neat.

The wind heads north with grim concentration,
hauling grey and tattered clouds:
indifferent to both the disciplined precision
of the black and white formations,
and the passive harbour and hills,
silently submissive,
beneath its icy north-bound feet.

These twenty-five poems show Dunedin in many of its guises and tell why this city really is something to write home about

This book is an interesting addition to your bookshelf or an unusual gift: it makes a small and light gift to post away or carry overseas.

It  is hand finished with NZ leather, and the cover picture ‘Albatross Mates’, is by Otago Peninsula artist Gillian Pope.

This book is still for sale.

Dark Night Dark Kiss

I have some copies of this book for sale.

The cover image is by Marylin Webb.

This book has a printed cover and is glue bound.

A candle for the dead

I need to light a candle for the dead
one for the long dead
one for the newly dead.
I need candles, and,
Can you give me a light?

…

This is an unpublished set of poems.

The cover image is by Brian Gartside.

“I kiss my hand 
To the stars, lovely-asunder
Starlight ….” Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Laying on of Hands

I would enfold you a while
skin against skin —
not with the reaching of desire
but the soft tenderness of heartbeats in silence. …

2013

A limited edition collection of poetry from all I have written.

Among the gods

I feel the last of the sun’s winter warmth
in the macrocarpa seat,
squint a little in the bright snow-light
watch my black footprints soften in the snow;

listen to a drip from the roof
a faint gurgle in the drainpipe
corrugated iron ticking in the sun.

I am so high up I see a storm ride from land to sea
swallowing the broad curve of coast.
I see our civilisation shrink —
nothing more than a patchwork quilt
molded to the curves and hollows of the plain,
dotted with shiny beads and sequins.

I’m perched on the shoulder of a god.
Beyond, on the white plateau
another god, pale pink and mauve,
rides my horizon.