Blue Moon Over Moorea

By Sally Gaunt

In Blue Moon over Moorea, an anthology of poems by Australian lawyer and poet Sally Gaunt, the author mines some of her favourite themes to remarkable effect.
Water in all its forms proves a constant inspiration, from ‘Swimming with Seahorses’ to the rapt, almost hallucinatory images of the title poem. Gaunt breathes new life into verse written for the reading community and brings a sharp eye and wry humour to the perennial subjects of love, sex and death.
Many of the poems are boldly imaginative recreations of historical events, typically centred on the sea, while the cycle of feather poems that opens the book considers the concept of manhood versus mayhem in a social setting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398411920

Sally Gaunt

As an Australian university student, Sally Gaunt toured extensively in Pacific Oceania, Indonesia, and India. She studied the Ramayana and Mahabarata and developed a genuine interest in the culture and people of South East Asia. She lives in Perth Western Australia with her husband and has published two books of poetry – Poems of Passion and Praise, and Blue Moon over Moorea. (The latter was published by Austin Macauley in May 2022.) This is her first novel.

Book preview

Feather Cycle

Many feathers make up an Indian chief’s headdress. Each feather represents a deed of valour.

Violet Feather

Tequila Sunrise

on Prison Parrot

Locked in;

A prism sky splits white light –

Sun rises over Opthalmia Range,

Southern Cross tops Drover’s Dog.

Black Feather

Black swans, heart carved

by river breezes

A mute Leda

Not chiming,

Clutched stiffly,

Spires above the bush

Brown Fleck Feather

The Osprey or secretary Hawk

behind closed door,

contrives a thrill or more,

hugs the coast,

betrays its host.

Blue Feather

Feathering, stillness,

Vice gripped, muffled

Aproned silence

Wingless bird absorbed in

Klimt’s dissolving Golding.

Squaw’s Feather

Squaw ‘s feather,

Breath blows, baby soft,

Pinky fingernail size,

Brown tip, flex spine.

Top hatted Jim Crow yellow eyes the nest for dinner.

A murder of crows found sweet meat:

Too young to leave unguarded

Mother/Father

Red Feather

Beowulf’s children

‘She’ bathed in fire and turned to ash,

He bathed in her

and returned to Spring.

White Tailed Black Cockatoo Feather

He wept tears

for what could

and might have been,

but was glad

that it was a crime

sans sang.

Magpie Feather

He stooped,

to pick up a magpie feather:

All around were contented horses

who had the horse sense

to be silent.

Great White Pelican Feather

Balance and nourishment

Cool, tannin stained water

drips from throat pouch of pelican,

Children swim, splash in a river

Stillness and well being

Thankfulness

A suspended abalone shell

rotates slowly

Pink Cockatoo Feather

Don’t look for a beginning or an end,

A start or a finish;

Now is Mulberry picking time

and my fingers are stained

merry red with hope.

The red fruit ripens berry black,

scattered are the purple dead,

The nest is in the tree

We wait for the Dove.

Falcon Feather

Love, desire spiral

above dimpled river waters,

Twist in the cavities of limestone cliffs

and are Heaven bound.

Glove reigned appetite

Chequered rain on

old china blue.

Yellow