By Billy Thackray 19.5.03
My father has a big nose
But he still can’t smell
Chopper is missing his ears
But he seems to hear okay
Even the dumb prefer sweet to bitter
Not knowing is quite different to not caring
And a fear of the future is a more gentle flaw
than a miscreation of the past.
Succumbing to the enticing memories
Of the serpent’s teat
Coiled, protected, nurtured
Hugged tightly, breathlessly
on the brittle brown grass … that
used to be so so green
You know, under the gum tree,
where the fence posts stoically
keep the barbed wire stretched
Twisted tight from long ago
And placed exactly where
And to last many droughts too.
Sure people have left, but noone
has ever taken a fence with them.
Its destiny like ours
is to rot slowly where we last stand.
The land is the word and it’s sparse.
But everyman knows what they know &
can speak confidently from within their boundaries.
Hills of. Miles of. Crops of. Races of.
The snake’s content, its belly now full
It lies, as all snakes do.
Throwing Henry Thoreau to the wind, it hisses
"most men lead lives of quiet desperation"
Some quieter than others, some more desperate.