Memory Weaving, a collection of intriguing and poignant poems on dementia journeys, is well worth a read. I have a  poem in it entitled A Tip. My thanks to ed. Carolyn Vimpani. LJ 

The Southern Highlands Poetry Anthology - featuring poetry by Mark Tredinnick, Jennifer Compton, Peter Lach-Newinsky, Dave Dowsett and I - will be launched on Tuesday 18th February at 5pm at the Council Theatrette, Moss Vale. Peter Lach-Newinsky, Dave Dowsett and I will be reading our work from the Anthology. It would be great to see you there. LJ

Happy New Year to all. May 2014 be a fruitful year of writing for everyone. Peace n light, LJ. 

Keep an eye out for The Southern Highlands Poetry Anthology, edited by Peter Lach-Newinsky, which is about to be released at a very affordable price in good places that believe in good poetry. Mark Tredinnick, Jennifer Compton, Peter, yours truly and a few other Highlanders and ex-Highlanders are in it. In the six poems included of mine, you'll find everything from Adolf Hitler to rice flowers. My thanks to PLN for all his vision and generosity. LJ  

I've just finished reading Anthony Lawrence's multifaceted fresh poetry collection 'Signal Flare' (Puncher & Wattman). It's an engrossing affair filled with darkly humorous, disturbing and poignant short stories, bird references, arresting imagery, human truths and ambiguity. He's using less punctuation and considered line breaks this time around - there's a Beat quality to it all. Anthony's lyricism always grabs me. Check it out asap, LJ. 

POST-SCORCH, 18 OCTOBER 2013

We float through a world

that's surrendered to

sepia-infused Gothicism.

Yesterday, many were handed

loss, confusion and statelessness

for all their years of hard work.

On my windscreen wiper,

a raven-dark praying mantis,

as big as the word Lord

in a hymn book,

desperately tries

to cling to air.  

LJ, 18.10.13

Working on a series of Aussie nature poems for a particular purpose... enjoying every minute of it... will reveal more soon... LJ

A POEM FROM A HUME HIGHWAY STRETCH BETWEEN BELANGLO AND CAMPBELLTOWN

Sun-fired wattle like god descending.

Between alien python tyre shreds,

scorched bitumen, shattered longnecks,

wombats with bloody skid marks,

the sleeping b-double veers

into a family's wagon. 

Sun-fired wattle like god descending. 

I'm off to the Bowral launch of Ron Pretty's new collection through PSP tonight. Michael Sharkey is launching it. Good to see a real poetry bash in the Southern Highlands! Things like this are few and far between down here. Lorne

That was meant to read... Putting together poems for the Val Vallis and Whitmore Press Prizes. Not sure if they're any good. There's the odd fine phrase. Always in the penning, there's self-doubt and pride. I should take up stamp collecting - far less taxing! LJ 

A SMALL POEM FROM BETWEEN ABU DHABI AND LONDON

Below our drained Etihad cabin,

beyond Kuwait City's 

effulgent midnight tapestries,

oil flames scattered 

across the wide essential dark

like dying embers

in a slow combustion box.

LJ, June 17 2013. 

And there's a love poem - At The Imaging Centre - coming out soon too. Watch this space. LJ 

I've got a pithy poem out now in the anthology 'For Rhino in a Shrinking World'. My thanks to ed. Harry Owen in South Africa. This beaut book is available from The Poets Printery online. Buy a copy. It's all about saving rhinos. LJ

Okay folks, what are some of your favourite lines from Australian poems? Here's one of mine, from Kenneth Slessor's 'City Nightfall': 'And there is only the quiet noise of planets feeding'. What an imagination KS had. Love it. LJ, May 13.  

I'm very much looking forward to the launch of Luke Davies' re-issued early 80s volume 'Four Plots for Magnets' on May 26th at the Brett Whiteley Studio. I planted a seed re. that collection's phoenix-like return... Well done for publishing it again, John Knight. LJ, May 3. 

DEGREEES

Over several family-size supremes

in Bundanoon's Italian spot,

tourists from Sydney whine about

the state of roads into town.

A Pakistani father and his boy,

eating bread scraps, calling to goats,

wander along what's left of a new road,

whilst being watched by a US drone.

LJ, March 2013

FACT

The male Sydney Funnel Web

was the only thing

in this universe

that spooked

Darth Vader. 

I just sent fellow Southern Highlander Mark Tredinnick a couple of poems for the love poetry volume he's editing... let's see whether they make the cut...

Geoff Page is at the National Library of Australia next Tuesday @ 3pm speaking about his life with poetry and jazz... sounds good to me...

I am stoked John Knight of Pitt Street Poetry is re-issuing Luke Davies' ultra-rare Four Plots For Magnets (from 1982) in April. Luke's lyric means a lot to me. Years ago, Luke offered me words of encouragement re my own poetry writing.