Lunch Poems

Mais où
sont les hum-
colored cabs
d'antan?

It's been ten years since I've had a book of poems published in New Zealand, & that was the last time I had a book published in the "traditional" manner—commercial run, copies held by the publisher—rather than via the e-book or print on demand routes.

Lunch Poems is a numbered & signed chapbook from Soapbox Press, made up of poems written in 2007, my last year of "gainful employment", during or just after my lunch breaks. It's the product of the sidewalk café table & a double espresso as transition point, dreaming of Paris & New York in the mundane surrounds of midtown Rockhampton.

Yesterday it was almost
Autumn in New York
&, putting a logical
footprint on a flight
of fancy, I suppose
today is also. Here it’s
coming into spring
but there’s not a
flower to be seen.... (from 7/26/07)

If anyone is interested in obtaining a copy, email the publisher Michael Steven. There weren't that many copies printed, so it's likely to become a collector's item. I'd mention in passing, however, that, if N.Z. is anything like Australia, the cost of cashing a check in an overseas currency is probably greater than the cost of the book, so be prepared to engage in some alternative method of payment.

&, of course, the book is dedicated to Frank O'Hara.