The Invader

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australia, Australia Day, Australian poet, Invasion Day, poem, poetry

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Invader you call him, this true native son?
When enemies threatened he took up the gun.
His father before him — his father before —
His father before him — they went off to war.

And there in lands foreign these fathers and sons,
They fought the invader — they silenced his guns.
Those men who lie buried far over the sea,
Those fathers and sons, died for you — and for me.

— D.N. O’Brien

A Giant Awakens

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australia, Australia Day, Australian poet, poem, poetry, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet

𝐀 𝐆𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐬

You slumbered in the south whilst all around,
The world closed in as daring men set sail.
Before long would your barren shores be found,
As eastward did the roaring forties wail.
These sailors and their nations, would prevail —
Your stone-age people would be swept aside;
Their ancient ways dispersed before the gale.
They’d built no walls to stop the rising tide;
Your moat was crossed; they had no place to hide.
And so did you awaken — and in fright!
As to the world your eyes were opened wide.
You rose from sleep — emerged into the light,
And saw the old ways were forever dead.
Your heart was filled with hope — and too with dread.

— D.N. O’Brien

Leaving Gondwana

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australia, Australian poet, Centrifugal Force, Continental Drift, Gondwana, Gondwanaland, poem, poetry, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet

Leaving Gondwana

Now all alone, north-east it slowly drifts.
Just inch by inch the mighty mass it slides.
An island of gigantic size — it shifts,
As on its shores now beat the timeless tides.
Upon a sea of molten rock it glides;
It slips — it’s driven by a starry force —
An engine that within its body hides,
Propelling it far from its primal source.
It journeys on a strange uncharted course,
Escaping from its motherland; its home
Now far behind, yet it feels no remorse —
Young continents, like children, tend to roam.
No trail it leaves; there is no wake to west.
It never tires, and never will it rest.

— D.N. O’Brien

Botany Bay 1770

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australia, Australian Aboriginals, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Botany Bay, Captain James Cook, Discovery of Australia, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, The British Empire

Botany Bay 1770

Well it was bound to happen – with your undefended borders.
If it hadn’t been the British, following their monarch’s orders,
Then it would have been the Frenchies or the Dutch or Portuguese,
Or the Maoris, or the maniacal murderous Japanese.
When you haven’t any fences and no army – no defences,
Then it’s clear to any sane man that there will be consequences.
When you’re hunters and you’re gatherers in small nomadic bands,
Standing on the bay’s grey beaches with but spears in your hands,
Don’t expect that stronger peoples with their empires all expanding
Will just say: “Hello”, and sail away without making a landing,
Planting flags, and claiming sovereignty to land on which you’re standing.
It’s the way it was back then, and there’s no sense in you demanding
That we change the past – you lost, but look upon the brighter side man –
Had it been the Asian hordes instead, they would have tanned your hide man.

To Sydney Town

Tags

australia, Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, Sydney

I’m off this day to Sydney Town,
Where very few folk wear a frown,
And where, the natives (so I’m told)
Drink sapphire wine from cups of gold.
Where all men live in harmony
And husbands with their wives agree.
Where people from disparate lands
Sing cheerful tunes whilst holding hands,
And crime (hence punishment) is rare.
Where every face is fine and fair,
And never spoken a cruel word;
Just compliments and praises heard.
To this fine burg, I’m going down;
To paradise – old Sydney Town.

The Dig Tree

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australia, Australian bush poetry, australian poetry, Australian traditional poetry, burke and wills, Dennis N. O'Brien, explorers, poem, poetry

The Burke and Wills expedition attempted in 1860 – 1861 to cross Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of some 3,250 kilometres. The expedition of 19 men and many wagons, horses and camels was led by the Irishman Robert O’Hara Burke with William John Wills second in command. They established a depot at Cooper Creek from where Burke, Wills, John King and Charles Gray made a dash for the Gulf, with William Brahe left in charge at the depot. After terrible hardships they reached within 24 kilometres of the Gulf before having to return. Brahe waited 18 weeks for them to return, eventually leaving just 9 hours before they returned, weak and starving and minus Gray who had died on the return journey. Brahe’s party had left stores buried near a Coolibah tree which still stands to this day, and which is blazed with the word “Dig” to indicate the location of the buried stores. All together 7 men died on the expedition including Burke and Wills who died some months after returning to Cooper Creek. Only King would eventually be rescued. He never fully recovered however, and died 11 years later aged 33.

The Dig Tree

How could this be, that after months of hell,
Of blasting heat and sands of deserts crossed,
That now but this blazed coolibah to tell
The wretched men, for them all hope is lost.

There on its trunk the message cut so clear
That but nine hours before their comrades left,
And they now weak, can sense the end is near
As Burke regrets the folly that had cleft

His party all those months before, when he
Had dashed with King and Gray and Wills
To reach the gulf, now but this wounded tree
To mark where buried store, such bitter pills

That at the end of this great quest delay
The deaths of brave men, starved and weak,
Abandoned on this melancholy day
By Bullah Bullah on the Cooper Creek.

Burke and Wills Web Research Archive

Poem Copyright © Dennis N. O’Brien, 2011

Image of painting:by John Longstaff, Arrival of Burke, Wills and King at the deserted camp at Cooper’s Creek, Sunday evening, 21st April 1861, oil on canvas, 1907. National Gallery of Victoria. (From Wikipedia)

Daly River

Tags

australia, Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, daly river, northern terrritory, poem, poetry

Image by Fitzy

The Daly (pronounced “daily”) river is in tropical northern Australia where
there are only two seasons: The Wet and The Dry..

By those northern river banks,
There in days gone by I wandered,
By clear streaming waters pondered,
Youthful hours were never squandered,
By those sandy verdant flanks.
Saw the rain in torrents falling,
Heard the native dogs there calling,
Saw from sea the rain clouds squalling,
By the Daly river banks.

Born upon a distant range,
All the streams that feed the Daly,
Flowing slow or tumbling gaily,
Come the rains it rises daily,
In a flash the seasons change.
Down the stony gullies creeping,
From the fissured hillside seeping,
Rolling clouds their tears are weeping,
Over all the monsoon’s range.

Sheeting over flats and plains,
By the creeks clear waters flowing,
To the raging river going,
As the land the heavens sowing,
Ever heavy fall the rains.
Then at last the gloom is breaking,
Sun asleep in cloud is waking,
Mud upon the flood plains baking,
So at length the wet it wanes.

In its middle reaches flows,
Beautiful and clear and gleaming,
By treed sandy banks it’s streaming,
With life in its waters teeming,
So it ever onward goes.
Over rocky bar it crashes,
Past the jutting sandbar dashes,
Dancing light in flowing flashes,
Cool but molten – bright it glows.

As the season turns to dry
Slowly flows the Daly river,
Piercing snags in currents quiver,
Sunken trees whose branches shiver,
Where at rest their bodies lie.
There a crocodile is sliding,
Close by muddy bank is hiding,
As the river calmly gliding,
Soft the passing waters sigh.

Soon the river widens more,
There a rolling wave is crashing,
White with foam and spray there splashing,
Sodden banks the torrent lashing,
Upstream runs the tidal bore.
Waters fresh and brackish blending,
Eddies, swirls, and whirlpools rending,
Still the winding river wending,
To the distant ocean shore.

Now the waters grey and wide,
As her heavy heart is flagging,
Wearily her burden dragging,
In her race to broad sea lagging,
Battling the surging tide.
But there spreads the great wide water,
And from there to every quarter,
There’s no force on Earth will thwart her,
‘Till whatever fates decide.

© Dennis N. O’Brien, 2011

King John Creek

Tags

aboriginal, australia, Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, creek, king john creek, poem, poetry

What monument is raised to this dead king?
His subjects are long gone to dust.
No grand refrains, by bards composed, to sing
Of wisdom and of rule so just.

There are no songs or statues, just this stream,
With limpid pools that mirror all
The clouds at day, and stars at night that gleam
And flicker as the curlews call.

Does in that scarred old gum his spirit rest —
Dumb sentinel upon the bank?
Or does it sleep in reeds where wild ducks nest,
By these still waters where he drank?

Upon his chest he wore his crescent plate;
No crown he wore with jewels and gold.
No court intrigues would mark this monarch’s fate;
No noble history writ or told.

With axe and vine he scaled the tallest tree.
With spear and shield his battles fought.
But could his dead eyes see this place, would he
Be saddened by the changes wrought?

For though the creek still flows by grassy banks;
Still paper-barks its pools surround —
So close the traffic flows in endless ranks;
All day and night a ceaseless sound.

But on some nights when light from sickle moon —
A silvered breastplate in the sky,
Shines on the mist that cloaks the still lagoon,
And breezes through the reed beds sigh,

Then all the souls who called this creek their place —
This warrior and all his kind
Who lived here in the past, this clear stream grace,
For King John creek, these spirits mind.

King Johnny – a “King” of one of the Moreton Bay Tribes.
The creek near Caboolture, where he regularly fished and
hunted bears his name.

Copyright © Dennis N. O’Brien, 2011

Autumn in the South

Tags

australia, Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, autumn, fall, nature, poem, poetry, south

In April when the first cool days
Foretell of winter’s coming frost,
And waning sun’s soft golden rays
Shine weaker now that summer’s lost.

When morning mists in veils of grey
The trees along the river cloak,
Until the breezes blow away
The clinging mist like clouds of smoke.

Then under skies of palest blue,
In these clear days before the cold,
The trees that shed their gowns bestrew
The fading green with flecks of gold.

Copyright © Dennis N. O’Brien, 2011

Image Copyright © Boyd Robertson