The poems were rediscovered by the writer in a medium light cardboard storage box in a garage at the base of Mt Dandenong, Victoria in March 2018. The book additionally includes Aphorisms written by the writer between 2011 and 2018. Samples: SCULPTURE OF IDEAL A sculptress deciphers white from true white in a rough-hewn limestone block. With fall of fragments, a bulbous woman disrobes. Gauguin hips. Surfeited on lime and stone. A rock eater, healthy and brimming with whiteness, reclining voluptuously between Blue Gums, within hands reach of tools to smooth her hair. Contrasts with her maker - petite, vulnerable. This other side of art has absorbed the grief of stone, rises under the weight of falling men. GETTING YOU INTO MY STAR SYSTEM Blackberry hair branching out across the lands, she's falling from a star with only a compass of bones to determine which way. She lands at my feet. 'I want to make physical contact with you, ' she says, touching my forearm. She documents her discovery rising like water about my waist, rocking gently at my sides till darkness comes. Black rings inexplicably withhold light. I walk with her through blocks of buildings and books before the sun sets on Brunswick Street, stalking her doorway to doorway to clarify the dimensions of her world, strange to me. She is anointed princess of the poetry scene. Her sycophantic new earthling friends tell her to be wary of bastard men. She looks at me with her eyes turned on. She speaks of flower essences and of karma, and the passage of birds whose names exist in intergalactic books, and of pages of the day turning over, and of her star dogs diving at airborne big bang sticks. Critics creep the atmosphere outside, looking to jam her star, me, us. She's from a galaxy called STOP! On the beach at Somers the sky light cracks the waves. We run for cover as it starts to spit. I confess. 'I want to love you forever.' She offers me affinity instead of infinity. Sea-birds disembark the sea leaving an impression of our absence as she determines to take me on a voyage into deep space vacating Earth for the winter. DEATH STORED IN A HANDKERCHIEF He had made his choice. The trees are a dark blue. The moon full of views, its light stares through sealed windows of flats. I compare different walls, knowing I must confront a single window with an unfriendly view. Leaves glint metallically. I am holding a hammer in my hand to break the view. The window has always been locked, he never let in air; now I must shatter it in one gulp. I approach his bloated body lying naked on a sheet of moonlight. The body is restless; it is riddled with maggots kept warm by his electric blanket foolishly left on. I pull out my handkerchief but already the stench of death is stored in it.
About the Author: Trevor Poulton lives in Melbourne. He was publisher of the regional weekly newspaper, The Central Victorian News & Review. He was admitted to the Supreme Court of Victoria as a Barrister and Solicitor in 2002 and practices as a generalist. He has written 2 other books, 'Defining, Identifying and Protecting Old-Growth Forest in Victoria' (2006), and 'The Holocaust Denier' (2012 Novel).