That Lazy N

Tags

Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Branding cattle, Branding irons, Brands, Brands -lazy letters, Bush Poetry, Formal poetry, poem, poetry

That Lazy N

It stood for Noel, that lazy N.
He passed it on to me back when
He had no cattle left to brand.
He said: “It’s yours”, and shook my hand.

I used it then for many years.
It branded cows, it branded steers.
In glowing coals was often fired;
But now the old iron is retired.

No longer will its letters sear
The heifer’s hide – the wild-eyed steer
Won’t bellow as with fire and spark
The red-hot metal makes its mark.

Now painted green, the brand is cold.
The last to use it hot grows old.
It rests there on its wooden stand.
There are no cattle left to brand.

{photo – D.N. O’Brien}

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The Cup

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Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, Melbourne Cup, poem, poetry

The Cup

The cup is being run today.
It stops the nation, so they say.
We hardly need such an excuse
To make our bank accounts reduce,
But even so I say: “Have fun!
Cheer loudly at the starting gun!”
For Melbourne’s cup I’ll make a case –
Yes! Here’s my take on this great race:
A midget on a horse’s back
Will guide his nag around the track,
While women draped in finery
Drink grape juice from a winery,
And men all dressed up in fine suits
Get horseshit on their polished boots
While placing bets on horses who,
About their form, they’ve not a clue.
It’s anybody’s guess who’ll win –
Not watching is a mortal sin.
There won’t be much work done today,
We’re going to the cup – Hooray!

Tibbet’s Farm

Tags

Abandoned farms, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, Run-down farms

Tibbet’s Farm

We stroll together arm in arm
Down by the wreck of Tibbet’s farm.
At what we knew in better days,
My girl and I in sadness gaze:
The leaning stumps in crooked ranks,
The scattered timber, tumbled tanks,
The space where once there was a home,
The broken plough that tilled the loam,
The garden beds, all overgrown;
Where once were flowers, now weeds are sown.
And there amongst the tufts of grass,
The busted bricks and shards of glass,
A little plastic doll we spy,
With but one arm, and too, one eye.
A long-forgotten ruined toy.
A relic of a fleeting joy.
A girl once looked into its face –
What shadows linger in this place?
We listen – all is quiet and calm
Down by the wreck of Tibbet’s farm.

The Hunter

Tags

Australian Aboriginals, Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, Formal poetry, Gidgee - Acacia cambagei, Hunter, poem, poetry, Woomera

Stands motionless, with spear haft thrust
Into the desert’s scarlet dust.
Upon one leg, foot on one knee,
Dark eyes through shimmering heat-haze see

Blurred forms towards him leap and bound
Across scorched plains of arid ground.
His muscles flex as ends his wait.
The lance is raised and now too late

The mob explodes in mortal fear
As woomera launches the spear
Of gidgee hardened by the flame;
Its flight is true and so his aim.

One kangaroo, gore-splattered grey;
A feast, his tribe will have this day.
He draws his weapon from the dead;
The jagged point glistens blood-red.

Sunset in Winter

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Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, sunset

Sunset in Winter

The amber glow as day begins to die,
Behind a darkened hill that lies to west,
Where trees that silhouette against the sky
March on like lines of soldiers on its crest.

And where the amber meets the fading blue,
And tinges it with golden streaming light,
With painted colours these last rays imbue
The western sky, before the fall of night.

Lost at Sea – 1971

Tags

Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Drownings at sea, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, Prawn trawlers, Scarborough Queensland Trawlers

The sea is still, these cold and starry nights.
No breakers pound upon the jagged reef.
The trawlers scan the sea with searching lights.
No nets – but grappling hooks, they drag beneath.

For somewhere in these depths there lies a boat,
And two men in this watery graveyard sleep;
And hence all day and night – this fleet afloat,
To find, and raise their coffin from the deep.

Two brothers, fishermen, the boys who drowned.
Big happy fellows – we knew them quite well.
The throb of diesels – I still hear that sound,
And too, when it hooked up – the trawler’s bell.

{In memory of “The Kids”}

Corn

Tags

Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, corn, Dairy farming in Queensland, maize, poem, poetry

Corn was a crop that each spring we would sow,
And in the autumn pick and bag each row.
Hard work it was, but then we didn’t mind;
We’d fill the shed with all that it could hold;
The cobs we’d husk and to a fine meal grind,
To feed the milkers through the winter cold.

But on reflection now I shake my head;
My father, bless his soul, is now long dead.
By sixty he was bent, his body worn,
From all that grinding toil and sweat and pain.
Now he is gone and so too is the corn,
And houses stand where once were fields of grain.

Hill 1054

Tags

2/25th Battalion AIF, Australian 7th Division AIF, Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Mazraat Ech Chouf, poem, poetry, Syrian Campaign ww2

“Who? V.C. Williams? – Yes, I knew the bloke.”
The old man lit his pipe – savoured the smoke.
He paused a moment, seemed quite deep in thought,
And then he spoke: “It was the French we fought –
The Vichy French – in Syria, a land
Much like our own, out west – dust, rock, and sand.
So V.C. Williams used to say, you know.
He’d say: “This bloody country wouldn’t grow
Much more than saltbush.” – like from where he came.
Yes, V.C. Williams thought it much the same.
In ’41 it was – eighth of July.
It seems like yesterday – how the years fly.
He was beside me in that final fight.
We charged with bayonets fixed and took the height.
He’d joined, he said, to get a taste of war.
We buried him on hill ten fifty four.”

{In memory of Pte. V.C. Williams, C Company 2/25th Battalion 7th Division A.I.F. – Killed in Action, Hill 1054 Syria 8th July 1941 and of Pte. A. N. O’Brien of the same company, Wounded in Action the same day, and in memory of the 26 other members of the unit killed or wounded during the taking of Hill 1054. This was the last action against the Vichy French in Syria – they surrendered 3 days later. The Australians had suffered 1,500 killed and wounded, the French over 6,000}

Texas, Queensland

Tags

Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, poem, poetry, Texas Queensland

On western plains it’s wont to hide,
Beyond the weathered great divide.
Around the town the cattle graze,
As on the benches old men laze.
A river wanders through the land,
But it’s no mighty Rio Grande.
Yes Texas is a little town
Of no importance or renown.
It’s small; to greatness makes no claim,
But had its brief moment of fame.

{“The origin of the town’s name is generally regarded as a reference to a territorial dispute. The land in the area was first settled by the McDougall brothers, who found squatters there on returning from the goldfields. Once their legal right to the land was recognized, they named their property in honour of a rather more famous dispute between the United States and Mexico over territory in Texas, USA” – from Wikipedia}

Stanley River

Tags

Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, bush poet, Bush Poetry, poem, poetry, Stanley River Queensland

The water rippling o’er the bars whispers these words to me:
“You came and swam in my cool depths when you were young and free.

Then all your worries were so small and how the world was wide;
But now the world has wearied you, come here, a while abide.

For I have waited patiently while you were far away,
And deep within my heart I knew that you’d return one day.

Your step is slower than before, for many years have passed,
And you have aged, as too have I, but I still flow as fast.

Come rest your body and your soul here by my crystal pools,
Where long ago, my glistening rocks, to you were precious jewels.”