July.
cold tightening
around fabric.
cotton clenched,
twisted like creekwater
seized by frost.
white cloth waits
for its undoing.
dye seeps
slowly—
like mist on the ranges,
like breath
through the fold.
indigo first,
deep as a billabong shadow.
then iron-rust,
red ochre,
the colour of dust
after the heat.
then wattle-yellow,
sudden sun
in the gathered valleys.
each knot holds a silence.
each seam marks a boundary.
colour works through it.
outside,
paddocks are stiff in the morning.
frost sketches brittle lines
across fencewire and spider web.
inside,
the cloth will not hold still.
it runs.
it fractures.
it remembers heat.
hands stain
like earth after rain,
like bark at dusk,
like something living
pressed briefly
into human shape.
unwind—
and the fabric is no longer fabric,
but aftermath:
rings like seasons misread,
threads like thaw beginning,
a map of stain and release,
winter stored in cloth.
July loosens.
not the land—
not yet—
but here,
in this small storm
of colour,
winter breaks
into circles of fire.
G'day you beauty Blue
as I haven't heard you play
in a year and a day
what did you do
with your fair dinkum didgeridoo
don't get me wrong
but it's been gone so long
has your bonzer boomerang
returned from whence you threw
by yonder backwater billabong
how about your most unusual pet
a marsupial (a roo) if I am correct
was it sold to pocket the proceeds
and pay for your daily needs
or abandoned beside the track
in the bush a.k.a., outback
It's enough to make one chunder
there used to be a time Down Under
when fair dinkum the label on the tucker tin
only stated the true blue maker's name
and the Vegemite we'd eat for brekkie contained therein
while not a porky implied mate there's something to hide
with a shonky no responsibility disclaimer
I’m spewin’ cranky as today's focus is on what's not inside
no GMO cholesterol additives gluten calories caffeine nuts
no added colouring sugar preservatives
no artificial sweeteners monounsaturated
no polyunsaturated &/or trans fats
and bloody oath cobber that's not all as I recall
no worries tho' there's also low sodium
not whingeing but one wonders if it's a dodgy admission
there's no bonzer thingo within such as ace nutrition
meanwhile I'll fill my billycan from yon billabong
surrounded by a few emu and a roo or two
as up a gum tree the kookaburra laughingly looks on
there's nothing more I can do so may as well
bung another shrimp on the barbie blow the froth off a few
have one last blast on me didgeridoo Blue and shoot through
At breakfast I scribble in a notebook
questions like:
why do I feel like a duck-billed platypus
has been nibbling at my brain all night?
The I remember
the billabong, the kookaburra
and the ‘jolly swagman’
all of whom
party-crashed my REM-sleep.
I ask: "Did you dream in the night dear?"
“Flamingo.” she says tersely.
After a pause,
“You ran-over my pet flamingo
with that big stupid truck of yours.”
I thoughtfully butter some toast.
“It was the flying monkey’s”
I replied weakly,
“they made me do it”
Lifted by the sweet sound of birdsong,
wild surfer on double overhead waves;
I feel all that Sex wax and Billabong.
Once upon a time
On a billabong
a frog croaked out his billabong song
It was harmony of nature
The stars looked on
And all was peaceful - nothing was wrong
At the height of the full moon
A fiddler appeared
And razed the night with his off key tune
The frog croaked louder
the stars looked on
The fiddler kept playing on and on
But something was wrong
Something was wrong
Nature’s harmony was gone
So the fiddler switched
With a knowing smile
And all the while and all the while
He plucked his bow
In rhythm with the frog
And the stars looked down
The stars looked down
Contest: The Fiddler And The Frog
Sponsor: Craig Cornish
If the river wends its way on a path so very long,
and it can't make up its mind, just meandering along,
then a monsoon from the west blows the rains in hard and strong,
and the water's backing up till it's flatly flowing wrong,
and makes a lake where none was there to form a billabong…
When morning's interrupted by the kookaburra's song,
which echoes oh so merrily, like laughter from the throng,
as the rainbow eucalyptus flaunts its dazzling sarong,
and your cellphone has no bars, do you know where you belong?
A Kookaburra laughing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jW7A2glZbk
"The Padded Soft Cell"
Here they cover their mirrors
with garlands of poésies
to stop billabong reflections
pooling through
the inmates
congratulate each other
walking in slow dervish circles
Boston-two-stepping backwards ecstatic rituals
Anti-clockwise,
I told them to change channels
when words become mute
and mummify themselves
in the gadaidja’s
interminably
terminally blessed loud
soapbox sermon music
they b**ched their chomping bits
about it all for a while
I suggested with a pleasant smile
keep on their side of the shine
twisting their own twine
regulated patients,
disgraced and racing
chasing love, love chasing
all intrepid actors underexposed pacing
sometimes we smile here
within our padded soft cells
if the ghosts we read through walls
entertain us from their wells
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
"Films" (Remastered 2009)/ Gary Numan
https://youtu.be/6HbIGk6zH_k
in traffic there is an accidie and weariness
and flatness and humdrum of the road
but leonard cohen helps with that
and i think about the poor north koreans
without their fix of coca cola
and the mental health of the finnish with
their billabong of coffee and caffeine flowing
out their ears and the best brand of water in china
has the biggest market reach and woodpeckers don't
get headaches because according to a
professional content provider they just don't
and speaking of the chinese
they've found a hut on the moon
some distance away from their rover; who can tell
who might be living in that hut
i look up out the windscreen at the moon
and imagine myself living in that hut
or maybe leonard cohen is living there now
and england have lost the first ashes test
and outside the hut is a scoreboard showing
australia need twenty runs to win
the hut has become a pavilion and there's plenty of
tea drinking going on
no finnish there pal
and someone shouts howssszat! across the galaxy
as asteroid 4660 nereus misses earth
as i miss childhood
it travels on and on into the depths of the saddle
of the universe
As the sun rises over the Billabong
Life began to flow in the dawn of the morning
Crocodiles snaps at its morning food
Large fish swim for their lives
Mosquitoes are in the millions
Swarming all in your face
Camp fires are lit all over the place
People are preparing their morning breakfast
Getting ready for their high pace trip
Not a moment to waste tasting their food
To begin to move with a healthy pace
The Billabong gives up its water
to every living to crunch their thirst
The birds, the crocodile, the mosquitoes
The people must drank to fill their thirst
Not one moment wasted, they move at super pace
The Billabong curbs and run at a fast pace
Watering the land and sand
And everything it can
The drought is coming and thirst will begin
Not one but all will taste its call.
Yes, we do share our dreams,
of course we leave out the inadmissible,
the dark alcoves and the flying monkeys.
At breakfast I scratch in a notebook,
doodle questions like
why I feel a duck-billed platypus
is still nibbling my brain?
I remember then the billabong and the ‘jolly swagman’
all of whom party-crashed my REM-sleep.
I ask: did you dream in the night dear?
“Flamingo” she says tersely
as if I were prying too deep.
After a pause,
“You ran over my pet flamingo
with that big stupid truck of yours.”
I thoughtfully buttered some toast.
“It was the flying monkey’s”
I reply weakly.
A sheila at a billabong
Was smitten by a boomer dong
"She had a son
Who could not run"
Recalled Cassidy Hopalong
Destinations, unconventional beings futuristic designs, some may deem them gods in the making......
Perfect in all forms, being the impendiment perfection is non existent .
Blink twice , bite your tongue realise the water drops dropping after every second.......tick tock! tick tock! Zhing Zhong! Billabong! Inner thoughts .....contemplate deeply about this journey.
When you make it to the other side son of soil, give the seeds back to the Mother Land! Run the race like your feet were made of steel, the ones left behind deserve a teaching.
Love must reside in that deceiving cave , the chapter of your soul, this fight is one that determines the quality of your bread , the strength of your harvest , the intention of your touch.....you a magnificent, you are an Android , the apple of our Nokiad generation , you are the fate climate cannot even escape you are the future!
Ë
The bright lights of the city
Have lured me away
From bushland plains and mulga scrub
from plains of rich red clay
Away from the serenity
to noise and toil and strife
To pay the bills and cure the ills
of living city life
Into a world of buildings
and people crowded round
of cars and fumes and airplanes
a world of ceaseless sound
I long to take my swag again
into the far outback
To walk the trails and feel again
the sun upon my back
To make camp by a billabong
cook dinner by a fire
Lie back and see the stars at night
then silently retire
But here I sit beside a screen
a keyboard and a phone
My time belongs to someone else
my life is not my own
Down below the city sprawls
around and out of sight
But in my mind I'm wandering
my fantasies take flight
And once again I'm on the road
not knowing where I'm bound
I'm off into the wilderness
somewhere I can't be found
From my PDF book "Bush Ballads and Bulldust"
Cattle trucks drive highways now
where drovers once held sway
Heavy rigs of chrome and steel
replaced the horse and dray
Gravel tracks of rich red earth
that rambled near and far
Have disappeared forever
‘neath miles of hot black tar
The billabong by shady gums
stands empty cracked and dry
The thirst of modern farms it seems
lets river systems die
The campfires of the cattle men
that used to dot the plains
No longer flicker in the night
no sign of them remains
Bush ballads sing of sweeping plains
where brumbys still run free
Of wild unharnessed rivers
and clear inviting seas
But brumbys fall as feral pests
the rivers drained and dry
The sea is choked with sewage
where fish and sea grass die
As the romance of the outback
begins to fade away
We learn that progress has a price
we’ve all been forced to pay.
From my PDF book "Bush Ballads and Bulldust"
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