Lifting
My pen from slumber
As those wild mountains
Are calling
Rolling misty veils
My heart dwells
Somewhere within
Above the falls
Or below
The dripping leaves of gum
Calm be the wildlife
As they seldom
See a foot fall
Those green fields yonder
I may wish
To one day wonder
But
Those misty mountains
They’ll call me back
In all there colours an seasons
The wind pushed
Leaning shed
Rusted out rovers
Oh
To be a drover of old
Spend a life
Among the misty mountains
I would take the dry
Take shelter in shade
To beat the heat
And swim the wet
When the cold wind blows
My heart
It does lay
Somewhere within
The misty mountains
Are calling
one grey day i felt the sky start falling
as the big black crow came calling
he brings a message ,nobody wants to hear
he brings the message that we all fear
i try to ignore him over and over
though he returns like a wondering drover
he brings the the voice from spirits above
calling you home to share their love
day by day he returns to me
watching and waiting,standing over me
weeks go by, his message is clear
and i receive the news that we all do fear
his job is done, i see him no more
i accept his message and now im sure
i know the future as i walk through that door
i am not scared of whats on the other side
when the crow comes calling ,there is nowhere to hide
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.
I am the bushland dawning
in the stillness of the morning
I am the sunlit plains
and the mighty river's flow
I'm the drought and I'm the flood
I'm the earth and I'm the blood
I'm the breezes ever blowing
where the wild pandanas grow
I'm the stockman and the drover
and I've walked this land all over
and I share forgotten secrets
that the wild ones only know
I'm the dust of outback trails
I'm the wind that fills the sails
I'm the city and the country
and the first high mountain snow
I'm the Murray River flowing
and the cattle softly lowing
I'm the kangaroo and emu
and the sunset's orange glow
I'm the Southern Cross at night
the explorer's guiding light
I'm the place that tells the traveller
that it's better to go slow
I am Banjo and I'm Lawson
I am Kelly and I'm Mawson
I am the Melbourne Cup
and the Sydney Easter Show
I am wild and still untamed
and there's beauty in my name
I am the land Australia
where the lucky people go.
From my PDF book "Bush Ballads and Bulldust"
Drover, ride your white horse...ride it with grit
on the sun-scorched prairies
of the Mississippi Valley:
where no tree is found in a shady spot,
but plenty of wild daisies
and pink roses distract you constantly!
Winter came with snow and haze,
and the buffalos couldn't graze;
now, in the open prairie, they do
and aren't startled by your gallops or
fear being chased and hunted by two
or three lasso-throwing cowboys for
their gorgeous hides to make a fortune...
hear them whistling a Kenny Roger's tune!
Drover, ride your white horse...ride it with grit
through the rich farmlands burning,
until you'll get hungry, thirsty and tired;
sit down by the Mississipi River and unwind,
observe the clearest water flowing
as Mark Twin did while he was writing!
Drover, ride the white horse, ride it with grit...
while thinking how far is your home,
how lonely is your wife holding Jerome!
Copyright ( c ) 2018 by Andrew Crisci
Social Injustice
Purging Purgatory holds a few,
of numb nuts on the planet,
reprobates could make you spew ,
like a bloody half baked Gannet,
social justice is sinking low,
where the LNP does rule, [ tories]
careful how your words do go,
incorrect-u-mundo, bloody fool,
National party in the bush,
In the likes of Longreach town,
Wear the Drover Moleskins, pants, the push,
And blue shirts, come to frown,
Drive on past the local cafes and stores,
In their big ole four wheel drives,
Out to the Airport, bloody sure,
How Sir and Mister [class] survives,
Cotton came to Cubbie station,
Now owned by the great Chinese,
I was there on the woodheap yeah,
When class distinction had some freeze,
Jackaroo & Manager, sit in the dining room,
Station hands, into the kitchen creep,
But we are cool,
with the Aboriginal rule,
Eating:
On the woodheap,
down with the sheep,
For we are the despised working class,
The brainless as a sheep,
Swallow lies and propaganda, alas,
Pawns of the super rich, come cheappppp :}
Don
i lost my precious to lust
Jealousy,impatience,selfish grudge
i lost her trust
all i wanted to be her all them
every moment of a year
for eternity
it is i who drover away
she moved on sand she will never be back
i miss her every moment,
as night turns to day
every moment i feel she is slipping far awy
still now i cannot admit that she is gone
and
Forever i will be Alone!
Hopkins snakes
Old Hopkins had a rope ladder,
To keep snakes out of the house,
Snake killing sticks under the rain water tank,
In the shower, where a snake ate the mouse,
The fowls all lived up in the trees,
Brownies were sucking eggs down, (deadly mulga snakes, dozens)
The bantams were sitting on eggs in bird nests,
Till the chickens were walking around,
Half wacked Jack, demented, said some,
Went to see a drover come through,
On a grey brumby horse, naked of course,
An was strip bollicky too, (horse riding naked)
Hopkins he said “me two best friends,
Are me shovel an hurricane light,”
He’d be punching holes ,
With crowbar alone ,
And fencing on into the night,
So if ya go near StGeorge ,
where the snakeys do gorge,
dodge death, climb up the rope ladder,
if the brownies don’t get ya,
death adders aint better,
just go to the pub it’s your shout!
Don Johnson 10-sep-11
I like this one because it is true story
Destroyer A Poet ~
Contest Name Your (OWN) favorite poem......
Ex Drover, me
As the cleaner sweeps the street,
And the saddle leather squeaks,
cos he's riding ol Darkie,
an his mind is with the herd.
He remembers the cold nights,
Leaps from his swag at daylight,
To stand by the fire ,
For some breakfast egg n bacon.
Yes bloody sah!
An the coffe black as char,
Sucked from his quartpot , jar.
And the toast is a burning ,
Like a bad cigar.
Is burning ,
And the sun comes up, aha.
So we’ll move them poley bullocks,
On the grassy stock route millet,
And the bore drain will water ,
Them poley bullocks shortly,
Till we get to Mungathar.
Don Johnson 8-aug-11
My favourite movie star
is John Wayne.
Shoot him or stab him,
he'll never complain.
I watch his movies
over and over.
Whether sheriff, cattle baron
or just a drover.
He is what every man
should be,
tall and strong,
truthful and free.
He always knows
just what to say,
what to do,
and who must pay.
So totally different
from the men I've known
who if they get a sniffle
are in bed, prone.
The men I've known
are not like he.
They're scared of horses
and scared of me.
I really suppose
I'm single because
no man fascinates me
like John Wayne does.
Horse play
I bucked the cowboy off in the hay
This is a game that horses just love to play
He rolled up into great big old pile
His anger I did most certainly rile
He got to his feet and reached for my reigns
And spat out an ugly comment about my brains
Since he was calling me a big dumb brute
I planted my hoof on his cowboy boot
I watched his eyes roll around in his head
What he yelled will remain unsaid
I was starting to admire this big tough guy
But I still reached over and bit him right in the thigh
When I pulled and heard his bluejeans rip
I let go of my toothy grip
I bumped him hard with my right shoulder
He was now an awfully pitiful looking drover
Now that I've finished what I had begun
I was thinking the life of a cow horse can be so much fun
By Mike Francis
TRACKER
A Bushman Tracker knows the way to follow horses here...every hoof is different
He’ll find the track one hoof placed wrong........all have different tracks
And remember it a year!.........If he is an Aussie BushmanTracker
He’d know the colour of the horse
By the hair left on the ground
They roll every day of course
Hair left in the rolling mound
An earmark seen on a beast
Is also logged the same
Remembered on a cow or sheep
If the owner comes to claim
The sun in the down under ……remember if you went south, how far back
The northern sky it sits…….notice when you went west
Watch it never make a blunder…..to find your way, back track
Never lost remember it…..some Trackers pass this test….
Don Johnson
Yes I started out life as a Drover with 1000 head of cattle me and my Dad.
I was 10 when I rode 40 miles to join the herd on the Bollon Stock Route.
Watch the sun and know which way you travel and you will be never lost
I drove the demons 'cross the land
By their side I rode each day
Each night I fed them by the hand
And cracked the stock whip each command
I drove the demons far away
One grinned and sung a lustful song
One stood conceited, pride and all
Each night I fed them, growing strong
Beneath my hand where they belong
I drove the demons, under thrall
One cowered like beaten hound
One sneared in anger at the weak
Each night I fed them from my crown
Which, like a halo, they surround
I drove the demons like a sheik
Amidst a ponderous, solemn drove
I speak of monsters I compel
Each night I fed my demons well
And mustered through the forest grove
The demons that I thought I drove
Are droving me inside my cell
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