cold storage

bussed it into Mitchell

from out of nowhere

and found it on ice

to the horizon line

a smothering layer of cold political rhetoric

the hopeless arguments of history palpitating

gently into the cracks

of stoneware earth

hurting is the season here in the bush

and winter is the additive that comes with it,

the storm shutters are up—

every second store closed or having a closing-down sale

the hunger pains of the city end here

the spirits are being sucked away into this gas-pipeline

as the Beast just keeps taking ... tak ing ... taking...

black and white struggle to reconcile

slashing their own bloodlines

the kids packed off to the Big Smoke

where all the opportunities now manifest

a rainbow-serpent dormant on cryogenic dreams

chilling over into the landscape

while a secret war is fueled on urban innuendo

as a country-town loses another generation of its young

to the lust of the city

a main street void

of the laughter of its children