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Barking Up the Wrong Tree

“Barking Up the Wrong Tree” 

ghost gums
shed their bark 
the min-min 
makes good use of it
papyrus, soft enough to 
imprint and write
thoughts, like the 
ripening welts of 
green ants 
small bites sting
subcutaneous and 
meridional, 
terra australis sings
for the kneeling
tree huggers, feel
the rough exterior
peel like sun-blistered
thin skin weeps
bit by bit silently 
baptised like a witch,
now far removed
a slate clean, 
reveals the smooth,
hard resilient surface underneath,
bleeding syrup in spoonfuls
rusty vermillion gone black molasses
good enough for ink;
the dogs in the distance
barking in pacts
like dingoes hunting
off track call it a duck,
magpies swooping
other heads congregate
to water their baseline marks,
to build their nests 
from blood and hair, 
survival of the fittest
the protective angst
of cohabitating with 
other feral predators 
on watch, like hiding bunyips
their minds cobwebbed hirsute
sow and split the seams,
bush turkeys gobble and 
peck in order front seat,
kangaroo courts all 
out of order brandish
their own malleable police -
miner birds, chortling pink galahs, 
black crested cockatoos 
territorial scarred, 
and twittering musk lorikeets, 
a Hanrahan storm is brewing
the jury’s in, those dreaming 
Matilda hares expelled,
waltzing for their lives
for the road kill running,
hear the Kingfisher speak
Joker deals his 
500 at the 
bush dance
smiling -
the bowers all put to bed,
no-trumps, games-a-foot
at the bush dance 
sliding across the floor 
the sawdust feet slid 
an eye-for-an-eye
Thylacine sabre-toothed 
bides its time, it doesn't cry,
dark night approaching
dusk dawning indigo
violate and rubenesque
black boys rustle
pepper trees salt the 
stinging eyes of diamond-scaled
shining devils, slithering out 
of skin crackling slickly hiss,
the sugar cane field burns
its sweet acrid toffee stench
blue and smoky mist chasing 
subtle creatures in a state 
of unrest, like foxes, rats 
and slithering red belly blacks
flee out of their well-dug nests, 
now seen for what they are
all undressed before the storm warning
listen, hear the Kookaburra 
laughing, maniacally relaxed

angels beyond salvation
silver brumbies covertly arching 
sometime arrives the morning
cloudy eyed, dark horses riding

marmalade and magenta, 
shotgunned

veined lightening claps 
its final fair weather warning

(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)



“Slide on By” / Tex Perkins & The Dark Horses
https://youtu.be/j_YbaFvaSWk


“She Speaks A Different Language” / Tex Perkins & The Dark Horses
https://youtu.be/A1hBzIws5l0


“Please Break Me Gently” / Tex Perkins & The Dark Horses
https://youtu.be/EJDrsy27dpg





"There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out." 




"...every cloud, 
they say, 
has a silver lining."
















“Said Hanrahan”, Poem/ Australian 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_Hanrahan


Tex Perkins & The Dark Horses/ Australian. 


Bill Henson/Photographer / Australian 
(Controversies)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Henson







Sawdust, Kerosene and Candles 

"We used to prepare the floors with bags filled with sawdust soaked in kerosene and then we would have great fun, of course, dragging that all round; and then there’d be the candles, we’d shave bits off the candles and that would go on top, and then we would have a bag and we’d pull each other around on a bag to make sure that the floor was slippery enough."


"The hall still has the original dance floor which has stood the test of time. It's highly polished and especially prepared before each dance. Back in the old days that was done using bags of sawdust and kerosene. A former resident recalls the local children "breaking the dance floor in, "George Ward would throw kero soaked sawdust over the floor. We'd slide up and down like mad things, then sweep up the sawdust," she wrote in a letter to Dan Ward.
"Then we'd get chaff bags, with one kid sitting on the bag while the other pulled them over the floor to soak up the excess kero." "The more dragging they did, the better polish they got on the floor." A little candle wax in the mix also added to the shine. It was like glass for the grand opening."

Copyright © Lady Labyrinth | Year Posted 2022

Please Login to post a comment

John A'Hern Date: 10/25/2022 12:02:00 PM Your poems and links are.... i am lost for words, yet here they are. Admiration for sharing your skilled poems. Have you shouted this one out from the rooftops? John Login to Reply Lady Labyrinth Date: 10/25/2022 2:48:00 PM Thank you John. That's very kind and generous of you. I shout all my poems from the rooftops lol...much to many another's perplexion or chagrin. :) xx

Elizabeth Mccann Date: 10/10/2022 1:02:00 AM Startling poem, beyond my ability to comment, only experience and admire. We may yet be rooned! Elizabeth Login to Reply Lady Labyrinth Date: 10/10/2022 1:22:00 AM Thank you. Lady Labyrinth Date: 10/10/2022 1:20:00 AM I had to add in the sawdust, I remember going to bush dances up in Queensland, outside my mother's family's sugar cane farm, rural Gold Coast hinterland. The hall floors did smell of sawdust and kerosene, and I remember sliding from one end of the room to the other as a kid , in the midst of a civilised Pride of Erin. The old men sitting in the backrooms with the younger, playing 500, with roll your owns hanging from their lips and tables laid with cold 4X. I wondered if a person dropped a lit cigarette on the floor, whether the whole place would go up in flames from the kerosene wash.

Lady Labyrinth Date: 10/9/2022 6:52:00 PM She speaks a different language. Login to Reply Lady Labyrinth Date: 10/9/2022 6:52:00 PM https://youtu.be/A1hBzIws5l0