Scrimshaw, Sperm Whale Tooth with Tasmanian Devil and a Cross
risking a snake to ring th necks of mutton bird chicks
fair crack of th whip, th ancient drums, th good oil
render unto Caesar
I’m perambulating in a shroud of zinc skin
beneath a wrinkled rock which has forgotten its name
a moth sky suddenly curtained gripping bars of rain
shelling out rainbows
you can break a leg with aplomb, you need more than caution
reverence is required
X-rayed by lightning, diagnosed by nightmare
for a moment, a head bubbling in there, a bushranger joke
strings of bubbles in a pot
you pause a moment upon entering a hut
this sanctuary was carted up here piece by piece
to prove mankind’s nailed to th stars
below, hippies with their meagre philosophy of dispossession
have stripped th old church of red cedar, it aches like an echo
we make sonar maps in th dark, owls mating
ghostly clackers chasing th egg
we’re standing in th doorway, spectres in a band rotunda
morning sun steams, splits time like a shell
bright carrion for a tasmanian devil, gapped teeth
death means employment
sawing & flensing & netting & shooting & drilling
maps of bullet-holes on road signs
hawks strung on a fence like th persistence of memory
th old bloke tells me how he kept his rotting thumb in an esky
then, seized with a great idea, used it for bait
we’re battlers in a horizontal forest
struggling towards a great thrust of love
an elegy for a drowned lake with her necklace of dead fingers
where men murdered a beauty bathing
furious at her utter self-absorption