Pure Poetry
'The Last Pit Pony' (extract)
Where cicadas beat the rhythm of the Hunter's heart and soul,
where the lucerne flats are luscious and the gentle winds cajole
with a swaying of the willows by each lilied water hole,
we were foaled.
Where the carol of the magpie is a lilting serenade,
with white bespeckled butterflies a constant cavalcade,
where the canvas is a testament, it's Nature’s accolade,
our home...
'The Tractor Factor' (the town asked me to drive it in their Annual Parade) (extract)
...Things were goin' quite O.K., almost nearly there,
when I hit the wombat crossing and went flyin' through the air!
And the thing became possessed and in a frenzy and a fever,
It bolted like a nervous horse, with me astride some lever!
Well, the Country Women's Float was standin' solid in the road
and despite my yells and warnings, well the damn thing got K.O.'d!
And the ladies of society, from upper echelons,
were wearing strawberry jam and cream and fresh baked buttered scones.
I hit the French Patisserie. It's now a Pancake shop.
The slasher's into overdrive! It’s got a Turbo Prop!
I wiped the local brothel out, six naked ladies ducked.
I went through someone’s poultry shed. The chooks all came out plucked!...
'Why?' (to an absentee father) (extract)
...Was it my behaving badly made you pack your bags so gladly?
Well, if that's the case, I tell you, I have surely paid the fee.
There's an image, ever daunting, thoughts of you forever haunting.
You imagined I'd forget you, but my heart is never free...
...for although you turned your back, Dad, I will love you till I die.
It is time for me to own up. I can face it, now I'm grown up.
But I wish I'd had the courage, long ago, to ask you...why?
'Angels on Horseback' (teaching criminals to ride) (extract)
...Over boulders and tap roots, all fairly low flying,
with Scarface in front and the pace horrifying!
He was riding with eyes shut, not even a blink,
and I swear that the mare that he rode gave a wink
as she bounded and bolted to get to the top
and the swearing he did didn't help make her stop...
From the Mexican saddle, the one big and brawny,
I tell you this much, he was no longer horny.
His voice it was barely an audible 'squeak'
and he looked like he wouldn't sit down for a week...
2011 Australian Bush Laureate Children’s Poem of the Year:
Petunia
Where the landscape chops and changes in a valley in the ranges –
magic – quite akin to Fairy Tales,
a hideaway ideal, a special place you’d think unreal,
for everything that’s perfect there prevails.
If I may articulate, it is a Riding School – first rate,
and nestled where the city smog unfurls.
It’s known as ‘Happy Trails’ because it never ever fails
to hold the hopes and dreams of little girls.
The lasses did abound of course and came from miles around,
contented just to breathe the horsey air.
They cleaned and brushed and trotted; they were one and all besotted.
The sweetest gentlest cuties all came there.
’Cept one – Petunia.
With number nine clodhoppers and with braces on her choppers,
she’d orange coloured, stringy sort of hair.
So noisy and ungainly, she was irritating, mainly.
(The stable cat shot through when she was there!)
The ponies all went hiding when Petunia came to riding.
They dreaded all her rough and ready ways.
They needed no correction; they were models of perfection, they
were used to gentle TLC and praise.
Petunia wouldn’t brush for she was only there to rush
about the hills a’swinging on the rein.
She’d slide down on a stump and whack the pony on the rump,
then head off home, to everyone’s disdain.
In the last yard on the place, there was an equine in disgrace –
done everything a pony could do wrong.
He’d bite the little dears and he’d reduce them all to tears.
He was for sale, for as they say, a song.
Impossible to saddle, even worse to try to straddle, even
kicking both the shafts from off the jogger.
He could rear and he could buck so every rider came unstuck
and frankly, he was headed for the ‘dogger’.
Until he got Petunia. So he set himself to ruin her
and everyone around drew in their breath…
She ignored his flattened ears because Petunia had no fears,
though everybody else sensed certain death!
As she buckled up the girth, well one could almost hear his mirth.
He snaked around to give her ‘one what for’.
Not even thinking twice, Petunia said words not so nice,
then brought her fist up underneath his jaw!
Oh! Paused anticipation with suspended animation -
could’ve heard a pin drop, that’s for sure.
He didn’t do his block; he simply stood in startled shock
and vowed he wouldn’t try that anymore.
As his efforts hadn’t counted so he’d get her as she mounted
and bite her on the rear and make her weep.
But before he got a chance to nip her smartly on the pants,
she sprang aboard in one almighty leap!
He gave his special kick he knew was bound to do the trick
to turn this little ‘smarty pants’ to tears.
She grinned and gave a giggle, kicked him right back in the middle
and trotted off the best they’d done in years.
To everyone’s surprise then with quite a glisten in her eyes,
she up and groomed him when the ride was done!
The sweat she rubbed to drying and the dust was fairly flying,
couldn’t seem to stop once she’d begun.
Never once objected to, although he was subjected to
indignities, he never turned a hair.
She polished and she patted where his fur was sorely matted,
even oiled his you-know-what-and-where!
She combed and disentangled where his dreadlocks once had dangled
and she worked until her face shone in his hair!
While working she was crooning and the pony he was swooning
and it was as if the world just wasn't there.
Now each Saturday she waits until they open up the gates.
She’s first there when the morning starts to stir.
As she hurries to his stall, the world can hear his anxious call –
the pony says he’s waiting too, for her…