Kirjahaku

Once more a collection of 70 narrative poems, with disparate themes, something, in fact, for everybody. This is my fifteenth collection, beginning with Timepieces, which was largely Gothic, to the present collection which are rather less bloodthirsty than those early volumes. I like to think of most of the subject material as bizarre these days, more subtle perhaps, but just as interesting in their wayward themes. The fact that most of them are written at night, in a dim, quiet room, probably adds to the flavour. There are ghost stories, weird stories, strange characters who inhabit eerie buildings and live lives of quiet desperation, and who may only be found between the pages of this book. There is the odd bit of humour as well, to lighten the atmosphere if one is getting over tense. You can read it in the study, in bed, even take it into the bathroom with you if you don't want to break the thread of a good tale. But keep it away from the neighbours, or you'll lose it for good.

This, my sixteenth volume of narrative poems, is what you might call a mixed bag. If you bought this in a lolly shop, you would find the usual sickly pink sugary ones, the sour teddies, and the chocolate smoothies. But wriggling around the bottom of the bag would be some that defied description, black and glutinous, with names like dark dreams and shadowy freakshows. Unless you held on tightly these would seek to escape from the bag and go for your throat. They exist on the periphery of horrible, or skate along the landscape of myth. They contain characters not in control of their own destimy, and are most comfortable in dark rooms by dim reading lamps, where they can invade the reader's brain and create the most havoc. If you're not extra careful they will escape to your bedroom and hide beneath your pillow, ready to insinuate themselves into your dreams. If you enjoy dreadful thrills, read this in the dark....

Two RAAF Neptunes take off for Hawaii in November 1968, intending to stop at Fiji and Canton Atoll along the way. They never arrive. Six months later the only two survivors from the two crews are picked up in an inflatable dinghy in the Pacific. The story they have to tell is that of a horror flight in which the Officer in Charge demonstrates his incompetency by ordering a Navex at night while maintaining radio silence. After dealing with a spot of sabotage inflicted by a couple of disgruntled members of the ground crew, the aircraft become lost in a storm, and fail to find Canton Atoll. What they do find, is an uncharted island surmounted with tall, black cliffs, which they name Blackrock Island. Running desperately out of fuel they decide to ditch the aircraft on the island, one by skimming across the water up to the beach, the other by landing in a heavily afforested area, skimming across the tops of the trees. Both decisions bring about casualties, but much worse is waiting for them on Blackrock Island.

The weird, wonderful and bizarre tales from Australia's foremost narrative poet are contained in these pages. You are invited to wander through Warlock Park and enjoy the out of world experiences of others, without becoming more than slightly mentally tainted yourself. I have been assured that on closing this book you will return to your own mundane world, leaving only the flavour of an intense experience behind, still nestled within these pages, and available to you once again on a second reading if you're game enough to do so. David Lewis Paget has become known for his bizarre works on Facebook, and has a regular cohort of fans eagerly awaiting the next from his imaginative depths. The range of these narratives are wide and all inclusive, from Gothic Horror to Romance, to the out and out Bizarre. He recommends that you read this at night, in a gloomy room, where the slightest creak or distant cry will raise the hair on the back of your neck, and prompt you to get up and turn the key in the door. Enjoy

Alex Prittik has everything. A private island, three houses, a bimbo wife, a successful business and $23,000,000 in the bank. He also has 8 weeks to live. He's determined not to be around when the worst of the pain hits, but then he meets Tina, and discovers that there is truth in the old saying that no matter how dire your circumstances are, there is always someone worse off than you. He enters into an unlikely romance, and stages a massive firework display, saying he intends to go out with a bang. But he's surrounded by barracudas who are only interested in who will end up with his money. He decides to write a will which will take a bevy of lawyers years to figure out, and deny anyone who has not kept on the short and narrow in their own life. A fascinating tale with a grand climax at the end, which will keep the reader in suspense, and gratified at the conclusion. A must read.

The characters in these stories may well haunt your sleeping hours, once you have given yourself up to them, have absorbed their eccentricities and the fables I engineered for them. They do not live as you and I live. Not for them the mundane and repetitive boredom of tiny lives, lived in quiet desperation in the mean streets of our cities. They mainly survive on the edge of their own particular darkness, the bleak forces of nature and unnatural magic creating the circumstances of the horror that defines them. Some do in fact survive, but a crude madness is never very far away, stalking even the best of them.

Once again this teller of tales has assembled a collection, and what a collection Included here is his 1,000th Poem entitled 'The Terror', a look back into childhood paranoia. But there is humour here as well, and riveting scenes of horror that will make your hair stand on end, (if you have any left, which he doesn't). There are sixty-four different scenarios here that will keep your imagination titivated, and your heart perpetually halted in expectation of the worst that can happen, only to discover he has fooled you yet again. It is the twist in his endings that readers have come to love and anticipate, and the driving rhythms that force each story along to its eventual conclusion. Oh yes, this is poetry at its finest, rhyme, metre, all executed with a nonchalance that makes the reader smile in approbation. It would be advisable to read only one poem per night, but of course, you won't be able to, because once begun on that dark ride, you will find yourself pushing on inevitably to the end. Enjoy

The thirty four poems contained in this volume are reflective of what I observed in China between September 2005 and December 2006. Twenty three of them were written in China during that period, the others after returning to Australia, and on reflection. The latter poems are fictional narratives, designed to entertain the reader. I wanted to collect them together in one edition so they could be read as a whole, rather than being interspersed with other poems not about China. I had no intention of passing any sort of judgement while writing these, neither blame nor praise. I was merely an observer, a 'Yang Wei', (foreign devil) from the west, taking my first look at the east, and liking what I found. The Chinese culture captured my heart, despite the poverty I could see around me. Their generosity overwhelmed me, their work ethic, their ability to enjoy life despite their poor conditions, and their artistic culture in art, dance and music was inspiring. Dedicated to my students and friends in Zhong guo.

The alternative worlds of poet David Lewis Paget, rendered in perfect rhyme and metre for the purist. These are narrative poems, short stories in verse, to be read in darkened rooms by candlelight, or around a camp fire. Guaranteed to give the odd delicious shudder as each plot unfolds. The richness and detail of these tales will amaze you. Reviewers have said that this Poet's work is compulsive reading, almost addictive. They range from Mediaeval backdrops for ghostly characters, to modern apocalyptic stories of what if? They are tales of imagination that would make Poe proud. David Lewis Paget is an Australian Poet, but his backgrounds range from England to America to China to Australia. Once you begin to read, you won't be able to stop. This is a must for Poetry fans