MRS GRIFFITH'S COCKY

Mrs Griffiths has a cocky

who lives in a dome shaped cage

and when he gets his dander up

boy, listen to him rage.

He jabbers and he natters in

a scratchy high pitched tone,

he screams abuse and threatens

till Mrs G yells, ”Leave the bird alone!”

With her fag dangling from her lip

she lets him do a flit

up and down the neighbours ‘fences

whereupon he then commences to

pull all the marigolds and dahlias

to bits.

We love Mrs Griffith’s cocky

when he hangs upside down

and swings in lazy motions

like some white and feathered clown.

From the clothesline wire he dangles,

first on one leg ,then on two,

and his beady eyes are darting round

for wicked things to do.

With a graceful practised swoop,

he lands upon the chicken coop

and rocks there, jeering at their

slow and clucking ways—

till Mr G comes home and as he

lurches up the drive

with his beer and cigs and pies,

Cocky does a screaming dive:

‘Jack’s alive, Jack’s alive!’

Then he goes into a death roll

and lands upon his back,

draws his legs up

and gives a little shudder.

And Jack stares at him, myopic,

and wonders if he’s dead,

till Mrs G emerges [with rollers on her head],

“Come on in youse silly nutters,

Time some cockies was in bed.”

THE COUNTRYMAN

He wasn’t that old,

I wonder what took him out?

Last time I saw him

with his dogs in the ute

and a couple of dried

kangaroo legs in the tray,

“Keeps ‘em happy,” he said,

we’d been in the paddock

where the bulls are kept.

“Saw you moving fast.”

His drawl and lopsided smile.

“The bracken’s a bugger to get through.”

He kept his dogs working

or tied to a chain

and locked gates behind him

like he locked his thoughts

to country ways, taciturn, oblique.

Guess the dogs’ll miss him too.

TALBINGO MOUNTAIN

Talbingo Mountain, steep, so steep

that sand is spread upon its road

to stop the cars from slipping.

Across the gorge, green shadowed in

late afternoon, the granite outcrops soar

and candlebark and stringybark lean thinly

keeping balance in the ancient shallow soils.

They say the man who blazed the track

came down it with a wagon.

He tied cut sleepers to its back,

logs like landlocked anchors,

while his wife jog jolted at his side,

their baby in a basket, trusting that

the horses wouldn’t bolt or slide.

Fear quickens in my stomach

when I take to the mountain road

winding up Yarrangobilly

where we used to go

tobogganing as children.

Did the pioneers feel it

slopping at their insides

like loose water in a quart pot

or was their life hard enough

without the luxury of fear?

SACRE COUER

We climbed the steps to

Sacre Coeur past Carousel

and African boys pushing

braided bangles. So steep

the stairs I am undone,

my breath hangs puffs in

white summer air no wonder

at the top are ambulances.

Those in the know ride up

in buses from the Metro.

It’s not till I am inside

drowning in the perfumed

sound of white cowled nuns

singing and being swatted

by ushers hushing tourists

come to gaze and say I’ve been

there to Sacre Coeur

when showing a postcard

back home; that the

gift of gilt and mosaics

and height and light pierces

my heart and for a sweet orison

or two: I believe.

RIDING THE SKY

Last night the moon made an appearance

in a pink and blue curtain of cloud.

It hung over Mt Wheeler awaiting applause for

its coming.

All day it had rained, the sky swallowed in mists,

trees looming blackly in our headlights

as we climbed to Thredbo.

Summer was lost where sky met the Earth.

But the moon, tilly lamp

of evening, partnered

in sun’s set over valleys,

where the rain had been vanquished

to puddles on the road.

And from our verandah

we encored.

THE VALIANT

Back in the time of crows

Mrs Hargreaves swept her yard

until the ground was shiny black

packed hard and didn’t dare to crack

beneath her millet boom.

Outside her back door

fire logs haphazard stacked

and from within their timber veins

velvet witchetys on crumbling lines

soft sacrifices to her hearth, in hiding.

Scarlet poppies vied with suede

coxcombs along a straight

cemented path, as sickly privets

fled the tautened diamond

wire panes that twanged

to trails of finger fenceline play.

Her children blundered sockless in their canvas shoes

a smell of rotting apricots and ripened veg.

But in their street, cocky knights of earth and beast,

no one dared gainsay their craft.

We, tidily enthralled to bursting,

fashioned shanghais in their train

to ping ball bearings at the crows.

GIRL AT THE BUS STOP

Last night blurs

Sank too many

Vodka cruisers.

Raging.

We rocked back

God knows where,

Did it in the lounge room

Fell up the stairs.

His mate came in

Pale chest, no hairs,

Stared at me a moment

Din’t know he was there.

Feel sick, feel crap

Vomit on my tongue.

Wish I didn’t come here

Want my mum