Best Shearer Poems
Ronald was a tough old ram, the biggest of his breed
Daniel was a clipperman, renowned of shearing deed
Many sheep were sheared that day and woolless they had fled
Before those two met in affray and battled in the shed!
Ronald, he had seen old Wallace wrestled to the floor,
Mugged of his dignity and fleece, and knew that it was war
And seeing that his turn was nigh, his hooves he dug in deep
He'd fight and though perhaps he'd die, at least he'd die a sheep.
Daniel had no time to waste, he'd quotas set to keep
And unprepared, he reached in haste to take the waiting sheep
But Ronald steeled himself as Daniel took him by the horn
And, rearing, pulled himself away before he could be shorn.
Off-balance, Daniel stumbled, to Ronald's great delight
Onto his knees he tumbled as the shears flew out of sight
And Ronald now unhanded felt his victory increase
Protecting his sheep dignity and, likewise, his sheep fleece.
But Daniel was not beaten yet, he knew that he'd faced worse
His mind was still determined set, he rose up with a curse
But still he was unsteady and Ronald was a ram
His head was lowered ready and he charged the clipperman
Ronald's head met Daniel's side and toppled him again
This time headfirst and to collide his head against the grain.
Leaving, stunned, the clipperman upon the wooden floor
In final victory, the ram strolled out the open door.
But, alas, 'tis not the way that sheep triumph at last
And Daniel would not see the day that any sheep got past
Despite Ram Ronald's victor's pride, the shearer would not yield
So followed a less dignified pursuit around the field.
Ronald, he was fast and he had four legs matched to two
So Daniel was outclassed, if that was all that he could do,
But he also had a sheepdog and so Ronald was defeated
He would have had the victory, if Daniel hadn't cheated.
“And you call yourself a bloody cook”, this mongrel shearer said.
“I oughta ram this rubbish down yer’ throat, it’ll kill a bloke stone dead.”
He’s talking ‘bout the stew I burnt, which I hoped he couldn’t focus.
That he’d gulp it down with ‘red-eye’ wine, and he would fail to notice.
But no, my luck was out, he flew raging from his seat
“You’ve put a taste into my ‘gob’, now I need something sweet,
What’s in the fridge;” he yanked the door, took out a plate and bowl,
On one was chunky custard, and one a mouldy sausage roll.
“Look at this!” The shearer screamed, so all the mob could see.
First they eyed the sausage roll, and then looked back at their tea.
“Hang on” I said, “You ‘mangy’ lot, what you’re seeing here,
Is something I can’t be blamed for, they’re from the cook last year.”
“Git’ the boss!” I heard yelled out, and one went for the door.
I need this job and need it bad … to them I vowed and swore.
I’ll clean out the fridge and lift my act; then promised I would bake,
A treat for them on Wednesday ... my special chocolate cake.
My memory’s a little blank, for the ingredients I need,
I’ve got most in the cupboard, with no recipe to read,
Butters scarce but lard will do, and the milks a little sour.
None of them are ‘gunna’ notice, the weevils in the flour.
There’s salt and caster sugar, I need cocoa but there’s none,
There is a tin of milo though; its use by date is March of sixty-one,
That’s everything to make the cake; all I need’s an egg to bind,
Oh yes! There are two in the fridge; last years cook had left behind.
I got down the mixing bowl, and took some water from the tank,
Spooned out a couple of wrigglers … the dead ones to the bottom sank.
I’m not sure about the ounces or the tablespoons and such.
Cups of this with drops of that, but does that really matter much.
The only time I wasn’t sure, and felt maybe should I renege,
When I cracked the shell and found, a half grown chicken in the egg.
But they’re shearers here, big and strong, who’d never get to eat,
Let alone a chocolate cake, but one that’s made with meat.
The oven’s hot, the textures great, I greased the baking dish.
The cake was cooked and it smelt great … every shearers wish.
But a chicken’s foot stuck out the top; I cut out and ate that bit.
You know this chocolate cake of mine, tasted – more – like … ‘passionfruit’!
Waltzing Shearer
Out near Dagworth Station during 1894
Where the Waltzing Matilda, Swagman drowned,
Cos he liked them lamb chops nicely browned,
He was only eating the Masters sheep, scoffing em down,
Disgusting said Squatters and frowned, some more,
In 1894,
Great Shearers strike was still happening,
Burned down Dagworth shearing shed, for sure,
Firing guns were the Gun Shearers , ..shore 300 sheep a day..
Fair wages they wanted, some more,
The Shearers strike it got ugly,
The Master brought in the Army and war,
Shearers were using Phosphorous,
Delayed action fires galore,
The master and 3 coppers came along ,
They chased down a swagman, before,
He plunged in the water, the billabong,
And death did come like a whore,
So he goes no more waltzing a Jumbuck,………..…sheep
His ghost lingers still there by the shore,
Was it the Combo, waterhole,
Where he sprang and he bubbles no more.
Don Johnson 24-sep-11
Yes Vom, Gram.
nothing wrong with sweet little whores,
except unless she sometimes snores,
and forgets to pay the rent,
and death is welcome as before,
for this dim malcontent...
I used to be a dreamer
until I fell for a dream crusher
I used to be very optimistic
until I met miss negative
I used to have beautiful wings
until I ran into a shearer
I used to be a lovely garden
until someone planted weeds
I used to see vibrant colors
until I came across mr.dull
Beware of such folk.
They bring destruction,
everywhere they go.
2-27-2020
Alexis Y.
Inspired by the “Warning”
contest
By Robert (Bob) Moore (©2015)
The gun shearer has gone now, like many other things
the shearing sheds are empty, and wools no longer king
gone now like the drover, and the brumbie on the plains
but we still have the scorched brown earth, and droughts and soaking rains
The aussie language has almost gone , the things we used to say
fair dinkum sport, and ridgie didge, and hello was “G’day”
no “its your shout” “snakes in your pocket” “he’s a bonza bloke”
“Bloody oath” and “Dinky Di” and “can’t you take a joke”
no footy shorts and tshirt, an Akubra hat was neat
now its baseball caps and hoodies, and Nikies on your feet
you don’t drive a Holden car, you drive a Nissan tank
the aussie way of life is gone, you can take that to the bank
once you could walk along the street, anytime without a care
bread and milk delivered to your door, the money you’d leave there
upon the step, with empty bottles, people just walked bye
no way that you could not do that now, and you wouldn’t even try
no bangers on the barbie, with a great big piece of steak
Hoges even calls a prawn a shrimp, the Americans to placate
used to say “a barbie out the back”, but now its “al fresco”
with emu, ostrich, and crocodile, and some you may not want to know
now everything is different, but did it all go wrong
can we say that it’s just progress, and we are where we belong
multicultural, many Nations, trying to live as one
no manufacturing anymore, all of that has gone
Is it still a Western Culture here, an Anglo-celtic race
or has it changed, to something else, at a slow, unnoticed pace
there’s Catholics, Buddhists. Muslims, there’s Anglicans and Jews
in every tier of government, and controlling all the news.
So we only know what we are told, and pretend that we don’t see
what’s happening to this Country, ‘cause that’s just not PC
so soon the Lucky Country, may not be lucky anymore
and we’ll find the life which we once knew, has walked right out the door
In a land of endless saltbush stretching miles across the plains
Of western New South Wales where it rarely ever rains,
And the temperature is searing on a soil that's living hell,
Where bleaching bones remind you of the killer droughts as well.
In a land where boredom strikes you as you seek a 'cockies' shed,
Where you put up with the haze that always shimmers up ahead,
You have drove a hundred miles and there's a hundred more to go,
So you're looking for some difference to relieve the 'status quo'.
Now you see I am a shearer who has worked upon these plains,
And from one shed to another I've put up with travel pains,
So I'll tell you now a story that has always stuck with me,
About a time when in the vastness stood one single Wilga tree.
Now this Wilga is a haven from the sun and stifling heat,
And offers shade for resting sheep that found this quiet retreat,
But danger lurked in sandy forms with eyes as cold as steel,
As 'round and 'round with heads bent low, the fear of death is real.
It was common in the outback when one heard the dingo howl,
To find the carcass of a slaughtered sheep where the dingo's prowl,
So every man who worked this land would take with them a gun,
To shoot the scourge of killer dogs until there is not one.
Still 'round and 'round those dingo's slunk to get the sheep to run,
I think the time is nearly here for me to sight the gun,
For the sheep were getting restless and were tending now to bleat,
But only moved around in circles keeping shaded from the heat.
Yet 'round and 'round the dingo's slunk and still their numbers grew,
With the pack much closer now, and the sheep had noticed too,
Then in a charge of hoof and dust, where blended fur and wool,
I had my finger on the trigger but I wasn't game to pull.
For I noticed there was separation from the hunter and the prey,
Every sheep from near the tree had made a perfect get-away,
It was the dingoes that had panicked, and it was fairly plain to see,
That their interest was not killing, they were busting for a pee.
©Lindsay Laurie 2002
Clyde was shocked when he looked in the mirror
His plight he noted clearer and clearer
He was growing balder
Like a leafless alder
He would have no more need for a shearer
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Come visit us under pink tinged twilight skies..
among boughs borne under a song laden tree.
In fair view of land, meadows green coiling rise,
one hundred twenty counted souls, and me.
The older children play, running in sun washed petticoats,
hair pulled back in pigtails & ribbons, an untied shoelace floats.
Their errant hoops gone tumbling over a dew covered hill,
wonder if sun refused to shine, and not mourning them still.
How resplendent a vessel, White Star's ship of dreams,
carried their passion as coal fed fired boiler steams.
Only to sink 'neath the waves, irony in iron age..
On maiden voyage Ides of April, warned her last writ page.
To the new world go mother, father, sisters and brothers,
prayers spent all would reach safety of harbor's bustling dock.
America's shores promised in the letters of others...
went as sheep to the shearer in Reaper's growing flock.
To third class cabin dimlit, down three flights of stairs,
their mortal passage payed so high a forlorned cost.
Waiting their turn for grace, their last supper's prayers,
scrape of ice., gaping ocean roared, in darkness lost.
God bore them one and all 'way from the tortured deep,
to cold windswept mount where saints and survivors weep.
"Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling"
All the praises you pick along the streets
Go confirm before a new-bought mirror,
And if those rare glories you all find true
Then know she’s near that beauty shearer.
Who’s time, the unerring author of loss and decay.
And so while you wait for she who must deprive
Learn your immortal splendor to wisely salt away
In shrewd acts that the lay waste of time survive.
Reincarnate in yourself some elegant luster
To represent you in the ageless posterity,
And water with care the shoots that germinate
In the fecund garden of your youthful fertility.
The sagacious mother leaving nothing to chance,
Invest in an eternity of prayer, for if bootless
There’s nothing of yours to lose to time-owned eons,
For this enterprise outlives all, and gives all for less.
With these desiderata carefully appropriated,
Now your chance to savor the trappings of luck and time
With vast unapologetic bites and greedy careless teeth
Till the bells of the end give their long-awaited chime.
I could recall some years ago
The day that sealed the deeds of the deal
And dot the long journey of nine months
In my calendar of the years
The same brought about the cry
That started the journey of my childhood…
What a honey of motherhood?
An answer to your heart cry
You were assisted and ushered
Into the labor room
Like my savior was accompanied
To Gethsemane and went further
With the burden of sin of perishing souls
He bent His knees in prayers;
He sweated blood
So you lingered 'un-angered'
With the burden of a baby boy
You genuflected in labor
Fear with joy loomed in the air
Swimming in the ocean tides of the clouds
And I could see water dripping
Down your cheeks and nostrils
All because of me
Could I see any one that flogged you?
No! It's I beating you from within
Not with cane but with pains
Like a sheep before its shearer
You journeyed between life and death
All because of me!
It would have been simple if that was all
But I could see
Like two of your younger ones
Even of your daughter's age
Shouting at you
Push! Push! Push!
Else you kill this baby
What ridicule leading a miracle?
All because of me!
Push! Push! Push!
That was their shout and cry
That ushered me into a new world
Right at their ward
That was not because they're wayward
It was a labor room
It was labor for you
That which ignited my favour
What a pain heralding a gain?
But it was like a pay to me
I took it for a ride but
It was mother’s pride and joy
I thought it was play
Until she smacked and spanked me
Yet they succeeded
As they persuaded you and encouraged you
Then and there with flow of water
And pool of blood you pushed forth
And you pushed through.
I thought it was a favour and for my good
Only to see her hand carried me
As if she was all out to help
But it was only to cut the cord
While I held my hands together
Lost in the comfort and dream
Of the cosy womb
She took me out of the comfort zone
She smacks and spanks me
Again, again, and again
She made me to cry and never cared to say sorry
But told stories
He's another boy, she said
Right there she baptized me
Into a new world
She dragged that thing
She called cot to your side
And placed me in it
Alone I was laid crying
And all she did was to laugh at me
Mum. Her white uniform belied her act
Dedicated to V.A Aderounmu.
© Fisayo Aderounmu.2012
Dirranbandi plonking
27Australians and a shearer came to bash Bronco Don in 1945
He was just back from Kokoda killing Japs to stay alive
Some carried beer bottles and others 2 handed sticks
I was in hospital being born while Don he got his kicks
It was enough to put a bull camel off his dinner camp
And the richosheying bullets hummed and wizzed and danced
Down the high stairs he came laughing with old threoh shooting quick
10 shots amongst the bashers the goona it was thick (faeces)
Much screaming as they left the yard running up the gravel road
Reloading he bounced bullets between a shearer and the toad.
The locals thought he celebrated the birth of a son
Others thought the war was almost being won
But in the pub the gravel rash was checked for bullet holes
And the boys sucked and drank old fourex got a priest to save their souls.
Don Johnson 2.45 am 14-march-2011
Don Johnson enjoyed fisticuffs And In the forties
The Goodooga footballers came to Dirran for a boxing match, Old Jack McKay would poke em into line with a billiard cue while Bronco Don and Bushman Hoath fought em one at a time. The day of the shooting
with the shearer Don had knocked out 6 men and piled the up in a heap. The copper said “what are you doing with them”. “I’ll burn them” said Don “Too green to burn said the copper”reinforcements and revenge that night, perhaps? Don Johnson
A phosphorus attack
(Squatter, ranch/station owner)
50 years ago the wild pigs were there in the thousands,
Aussie Squatters used to bait em, sap em,
with phosphorus, the louses?
A lethal dose was ~50 mg
Stopped dead without his trousers,
A side effect was the fire effect
Of long dead, old pig the browser.
Suddenly you would have a fire,
Phosphorus, was the poison,
Dead eagle hawks, and Foxes too,
Dingoes killed by poison.
Rabbit was killed with stricknine ,
With sweet plum jam, a treat,
Cos the master hated rabbit,
Cos drought left no grass to eat
Drought causes paranoia,
When it’s dying all around ya,
And the Dingoes are a howling ,
Foxes are eating Fowls, are.
The Shearers strike in Australia in 1891,
Got the Labor party going,
good wages then were won ,
Armed farmers fought the Shearers ,
Shearers jailed were often, some.
Old Shearer wanted payback ,
Upon the Squatter master, Jack,
So phosphorus in water,
by the shearer attack,
months after the deed the water dried
and fire flew up the building,
another shearing shed burns,
fire so bewildering
A phosphorus attack!
Don Johnson
There is a story from Renmark in the Riverland
Of a man in the bush as his legend began
He was a shearer from New Zealand in the Depression
Who came to Australia in the 1920s for shearing sessions
But hard times meant he could not buy his Union ticket
This put him out of work without it
So he went into the bushland
And lived his life there not so grand
Cause people were different in those days
And Possum was proud staying out of the way
So he lived on bush tucker all the time
Doing odd jobs he would be just fine
Surviving on track rations from police stations
He travelled the bush tracks of the Australian nation
Taking no charity working for salt he’d need to do
This he said it would get him through
Max Jones was a local detective sergeant there
Who tried to look after this legend as he did care
But Possum would look after himself
Using his bushcraft skills as his wealth
As the years went on his legend grew
He’d mend a fence or chop firewood too
But he would not take handouts
As he would travel the Riverland on walkabout
He would say he’d be alright
When he would get his Union ticket as his right
One of a disappearing breed
Only taking what he would need
And so now Possum has gone from this world too
With his body being found next to the river in 1982
They built a statue of Possum at Wentworth town
At the place where the Darling meets the Murray flowing down.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Are the exploits slowly fading of the folk who forged this land?
Are there more important factors, today for us to understand?
Are we prepared to lose our national character?
Erase our borderlines, and forget about Australia,
where squatter and selector, fought fire, flood and drought …
the Shearer and the drover helping cut the wool clip out.
Self-reliance in this dry land; suspicious of authority,
physical and mental toughness, laconic humour tempered eagerly.
The exploits real and fabled, our robustness could quite relate,
so in our generation - old qualities are ours to celebrate,
for the musterer and stockman on a cattle or sheep run.
The swaggy and the bagman tramping 'neath the burning sun.
The diggers and the miners. with their quest for precious ore.
Bushrangers and the troopers who were the lawless and the law.
The footsteps of explorers and those who died in war.
Bullocks and the Walers; axe ring and crosscut saw.
'T'is for the struggle of our pioneers,
and who's souls we can’t restore,
that we must preserve the heritage,
of Australians who have lived before.
Haunting Trump Taunting
Haunting Trump Taunting
And over our heads vaunting
Appearance daunting.
Bad news am shearer
And again the sad bearer
Trump holy terror.
Party inviting
A President presiding
He should be hiding.
Always occurring
Politics and posturing
Some things still stirring.
James Thesarious Hilarious Horn
Retired Veteran and Poet