Table of Contents

Title Page

smoke encrypted whispers

acknowledgments

of muse, meandering and midnight

a prelude

magnesium girl

after 2a.m.

back seat driver

on the river

waiting for the good man

raindrops fall in vain

chloe in the window box

the postman’s privilege

musing: the graveyard shift

new farm is closed

white stucco dreaming

the crooked men

brown water looting

jetty nights

carefree

deadman’s mouth harp

a verse for the cheated

the fatal garden

radio thick blood

midnight’s boxer

surgery music

a bent neck black and flustered feather mallee

the gloom swans

a black bird of my mind

fly-fishing in woolloongabba

shout-me-a-wine requiem

crust

the writer’s suitcase

midnight’s plague

labelled

for the wake and skeleton dance

the dingo lounge

valley man

cheap white-goods at the dreamtime sale

the mosquito room

mudflat

it starts

1986

boondall wetlands

poem 9

once was a rifle range

the kabul manifest

hotel bone

the job

hotel bone

when dogs gamble

the late shift erupts

bone yard, south brisbane

itinerant blues

cold storage

the dusk sessions

kangaroo crossing

what more

we’re not truckin’ around

nil by mouth

the golden skin of cowgirls

floodlight sonatas

abandoned factories

scenes from a getaway car

night racing

3a.m. escape

pre-flight

95 cents a litre

deo optimo maximo

gasoline

literary festival bump-out

itinerant blue

products of mexico

gas tank sonnets

sunday

the last bullfighter

back road

sultry gridlock musings

brunswick st blues

ambulance chaser

talking to the airplanes

three-legged dogs

fire

the night house

jaded olympic moments

without regret

future primitive

the night train from newcastle

sortie

the finder’s fee

skeletons in the trunk

the thousand-yard stare

king

last exit to brisbane...

hollow squall

smoke encrypted whispers

warning:

smoke signals

tigerland

scared of the dark

wecker road

cribb island

capalaba

rip

smoke water

author’s notes #1

darkroom

fisherman islands

paper trails to midnight

author’s notes #2

ghosts of boundary street

dog tired tune

when I crossed the ditch...

author’s notes #3

the dust company

from boundary street, west end, to the berlin wall, east germany

snapshots

aunty grey smoke

author’s notes—conclusion

revolver

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