handsome like the Marlboro man
I stared at the old lady, thinking it was funny
then I met him, a handsome jackaroo
jillaroos would come out of the woodwork now
Categories:
stockman, men,
Form: Free verse
More fresh jillaroos sniffing around each day Jake observed.
His fellow stockman nods. They like being ringers I guess.
This brings us fresh jackaroos, so it is okay by me.
Categories:
stockman, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Free verse
The brumby of Australia, not known to be well bred
Some are tough as leather, but that not often said
More criticised that praised, for damage that they do
Muddying the waterholes, as cattle never do
The biggest problem that they have, their wish to have a roll
Find some nice clean water, then muddy up the hole
They will get to station horses, the mares have foul breed foals
The quality completely gone, and fences torn to holes
The stockman love to muster them, the wildest of the rides
Chase them way along the flat, and down the mountain sides
But we also have a saying, and is so very true
You should never kill a good horse, as some brumby chasers do
So though it is so very sad, we have to thin them out
We can only breed fine horses, if no brumbies are about
Your life depends on stamina, and full trust in your mount
It is your horse that saves your life, more times than you can count
Categories:
stockman, animal,
Form: Rhyme
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.
Categories:
stockman, history,
Form: Ballad
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"
Categories:
stockman, uplifting,
Form: Ballad
Marauding herdsmen, simple
in disposition,
but yet
sophisticatedly armed
straddling an AK47 as
the rod of a stockman.
The simple farmers, genial
in disposition garnished
with infectious courtesies
straddling simple tools.
It's a fight to the slaughter
not of cows so sacred
but
Of grazing rights and farmlands
Of pastures and food crops
Of the North and the South.
The sacredness of the herdsmen
and cattle.
The lowliness of the farmlands,
life
at its lowest ebb.
Impunity!, impunity!! where the
rule of law reigns supreme.
The herdsman as sacred as
Buddha.
But the farmer as droppings on
a dunghill;
to be trampled upon.
Blood and dust a mix with
derision.
Blue blood runs in the
herdsman's veins
The herdsmen reign supreme in
Nigeria.
Categories:
stockman, africa,
Form: Free verse