Full moon. The brazen eye of midnight scans
the black and swollen mountains oozing fire
high over the indifference of the sleeping plains
hazed with the perfumed smoke of death and fear
...
Kenneth Mackenzie was educated at Guildford Grammar School, and studied briefly at Muresk Agricultural College and the University of Western Australia. He left Perth in December 1933 for Melbourne and then Sydney, on the advice of Norman Lindsay. In 1934, he married art teacher Kathleen Bartlett and they had two children. Mackenzie worked as a journalist with Smith's Weekly and ABC Weekly, before being drafted into the army in 1942. He served as a corporal in Cowra,New south Wales. overseeing Italian captives held for the duration of World War 11.)
Mountain Bushfire
Full moon. The brazen eye of midnight scans
the black and swollen mountains oozing fire
high over the indifference of the sleeping plains
hazed with the perfumed smoke of death and fear
under the radiant zenith. It is not far
from here to the wild flags of havoc flying
out of the doomed and bannered trees before
the west wind, hilarious hunter plying
nets and whips of flame, the trumpet playing
a ghastly fanfare.