A couple of 'roos
A joey standing forlorn by it's unmoving mother
A few wallabies
A brick of a wombat
An Echidna
A heap of budgies
A raven
Some pretty green grass parrots
Cockies and galahs
A baby magpie
A snake
Some frogs
Someone's cat
A stray dog
All broken
Squashed flat
Mangled
Bloated
Instant death or slow painful bleeding out
In agony
All those battered bodies
The sadness of it all
The need for speed
Creating this meaningless road toll
And no-one seems to care
The beauty
Of
Namatjira
White haired
Bark painter's
Of fish
Wandjina
Feathered man
Full sunset
Corroboree
Pintubi
Dancers
In watercourse
Colours
Of hills
And rangers
Near Henbury
Or was it
Kings canyon
South
Alice springs
Dome like peaks
Of Olga's
Stark landscape
Barren
Barkly
Near Soudan
Where
Dust storms
A common hazard
The faces
Of William Richetts
In the Maelstrom
Those colours
Of time
And day
House Wife's
Bushman
Children of the
Banka, Banka
Old hats
Tin shacks
The Southern Cross
Spinning
Creaking
Just there
In the sky
A Rhyme
To its own time
Wonky
Old water tank
Those proud
Spearman
From
Emily Gap
A shared history
Not us
Them
Just the
Layers of life
Turned sideways
Like
Krichauff Rangers
Somewhere
Out west
Where Echidna
Thorny Devil
( my favourite )
Freshwater tortoises
Swimming
Crocs
Beauty
In birds
Of flowers
Palms
In valleys
Secrets
Of bushman
Ringers
Dreams
Of its people
And fading
Its
Fading
Memories
Make room for the platypus and echidna
Only found in Australia, cha cha cha!
With body temps lower than other animals
They are the earth’s only egg laying mammals
Move over, for they are waddling through.
Here is one, two, seven, eight, sixteen, twenty-two
They have such a small face, and hair on their back.
They waddle right over, without politeness or tack.
Make room for the platypus and echidna my friends.
They are living down under, where loveliness never ends.
We like watching them lay their eggs, they do not mind a bit.
But if we dare disturb them, they would have a fit!
Spiky hair.
Brittle.
Porcupine,
hedgehog,
spiny anteater
echidna,
kid.
Grow up prickly.
Grow up quick.
They raze -
rib dig.
Hurts in his alphabet soup.
Jeers jar.
quills quiver.
Curled up,
face tucked
into heart.
There’s a lizard in our house,
At the last there was a mouse.
And we called the mouse Klaus,
Now there’s a lizard in our house.
Soon there will be a roo,
Koala, Possum, Emu too.
Swear it’s really true-
There’s a lizard in my shoe
A lizard in my shoe
In our house.
There’s an emu in our car,
He’s playing his guitar,
He thinks he’s a big star
The emu in our car
In our car
There’s a wombat in our school,
King parrot makes a rule
‘No wombat in our school;
This is birdy school
Birdy Birdy school
Bird.Dee.School
There’s a dingo on a boat,
A possum on a float.
Koala writes a note-
I’m in a life…coat
Please dingo stop your boat
Ding stop your boat
Stop your boat
Above goes flying fox,
In his orange jocks
With stripey coloured socks
Coloured socks
There’s an echidna in the pub,
Hugging witchery grub
Platypus guards the door
Croc is on the dance… floor
Doing a little dance
Dancey Dancey Dance
Dancey. Dance
Preying Mantis serves up drinks,
Southern Cross looks down and thinks…
They call her Mother!!
Ingrained care
besought her every step.
Standing before Judges and Kings,
her chivalry sought to escape her.
She might not be
an everyday queen
she sought to be
but
her grace
falls on every struggling echidna.
Mother, why live only for others
and neglect the satisfaction of your soul?
The voice of faith would say:
You can all do both
in an insanely biased world!
Happy Mother’s Day
Spiky hair,
brittle waves,
porcupine,
hedgehog,
spiny Anteater,
echidna.
A kid
growing up
prickly.
The long tongues
of children
gibe him sharp.
Tumbleweed in the schoolyard.
Can’t tread him down.
Hurts are on the surface
like frozen
alphabet spaghetti.
Thorns and barbs,
jagged Jeers,
quills quietly quivering
the quarry -
face tucked
into his heart.
Echidna was giving me lots of advice
Giving it hard, expertly, and at least thrice
Encouraging me to go to a dentist now
Warning me as only bossy echidnas know how.
Her argument held no weight after I remember
Something she told me way back in September
Echidna does not have to get dental relief
For Echidna has absolutely no teeth
The echidna and the platypus were friends.
They both had a teeny tiny secret, one and the other.
The sweet platypus had venom on his ends.
He was told to keep this hidden by his mother.
The short-nosed echidna could lay eggs as well as a wren.
She was told to keep this under wraps, by her brother.
Their love for eating worms and insects made them friends.
That was something they could talk about with each other.
Echidna’s spikes were dangerous on the ends.
Most certainly out in the open, not hidden from platypus.
Platypus’s five sharpie claws helped make them friends.
He could dig insects up for his mate, Echidna, without fuss.
The platypus’s venom reveal might have meant no friendship,
He retained this secret; he kept it under lock and key.
Echidna’s secret would have given them another reason for kinship,
If she had discovered that Platypus can lay eggs like me.
A young cyclist called Jimmy Pike,
Famous for riding his cross-country bike,
Hit an echidna, his tire went flat,
Stopping his long trek,there he sat,
I think he might have to hitch-hike.
A kangaroo came jumping strong,
Paused, then asked, "What is wrong?"
" A wayward echidna with bad eyesight,
got in the way and stopped my bike,"
Now the pair are bouncing along.
It was the day of
dead patriarch.
I was fondling an echidna.
The home was
carried away in the-
storm. Must find a broom.
On the remains-
of a burned-out soul.
A hope sits on the altar.
A piano drenched in rain-
will not sing in the gale.
The sky will collapse-
one day, I will bring
back the bluebird,
for a revenge.
Satish Verma
Pig a billa
Good tucker is ol pig-billa,
Porcupine Echidna hey,
Favourite food of Aboriginals,
Has him own spears anyway,
Track him cross the hot red sand,
Which way does he go, today,
Claws on his back legs are a pointing,
Where he come from, there we say,
Dead possum hanging oer the water,
Maggots falling soon they may,
Yellow belly sucks em sorta,
Big ol Cod could eat em hey,
Marbuk silent as a Gum-tree,
Waits with fishing plurry spear,
See the flash of yella-belly, see,
Him on the coals to sear!
Swish of killer boomerang,
As the wild ducks leave the water,
Pelted as a hundred swam,
Got a Shag hook nosed just sorta,
Break-em wing as it leaves the water,
Bloody tough meat make you chew,
Yarraman is a horse you see,
Milinbri beast of cattle, be,
Crocodile he waits for you,
Don’t swim where he will maybe chew,
After the death roll kills you, oughta,
Fresh meat ol tourist brought ya,
To Cape York for interview.
Ole Croc can get you too!
Sidestep this frenzy slaughter….
Whatever ya bloody do.
Ole Johnson the reporter …Don
living loving, then the leaving,
passing through deaths back door,
different colors same ol speaker,
never dead 4 nevermore.
been so many times the planet,
wore a petticoat for sure,
waddya mean me name was Janet,
i'm a guy now haw haw haw.
blink of eye an life is passing,
blowpipe, green Amazon i saw,
get that bird with my next shot,
get them feathers off, eat more.
Woomera notched on me spear,
reef it at that Roo for sure,
Echidna him good tucker,
love him, eat him like him, more ...
thanks Laura Breidenthal
Don Johnson
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