The Tripping Bone

Why is that there, he asked, pointing with his right hand
That tripping bone thing, why is it there, in front
Of the sofa. Flower stitched unknown over countless
Regretful memories of yesteryear.

The upturned ship

Pale green translucent of the shallow shelf
The upturned ship suspended below the surface



A ship can hover for days
An angry spirit caught indecisive
Between this world and the unseen.

Porphyria

this piece won an honourable mention in the lake weereewa short story contest - so it can be a short story - but i like to think of it as a prose poem. please yourself.


Shem and Sam at the shore

Aye he was, he was one of those auld syne gammon coves, said
the elder of the two, his gaumless hat pushed down deep into
his forehead, hiding his eyes from the glaring gaze of
strangers.

Too right he was as game as Ned Kelly (one of them that has
nowt yet sprung into existence), agreed the second swaggering
deadly ringer. He was younger, but still not what most would
call a young mane. His thick coarse bread was white and corpse
pale.

These hare paired up old lecher codgers one hob nailed up
standing at the bar of the public hows your father. On the
tiles ground underfoot the stringybark crack snore dust, the
winkled open peanut shells vacant, the bags of blood, the hags
of vomit ejected. Weakening cents fuming a penny a pint gin
full fills this closeted atmosphere.

Shout out a berryhuckle - maybe a pair o' belly washers, boggin
poteen they be passing off here 'bouts. The bushly pair noodled
in argruntment.

He was wild with tears of rage the old one jojo burned without
culture. He was spent out to our melanomic botanical coven for
lead balling one rarebit, cock smackadoodledoo (the older bush
man slapped his hands together in an attempt to emulate the
gunshot sound), in the brain pan on some fat gouty borne to the
'ouse of lourdes manner. Aye wilde he was and a gammon cove too
right. He was tasked, commanded, to strike out from Dole Sydney
Tone Cove across the dead of night, in the dead of winter. Wide
awake he came back and spoke to all them standing around the
steps of hate towne tammany hall. He spoke widely of all he had
seen to those ones who were filling their dark chambered hearts
with greedy glee at the thought of all that fat empty land just
stinging there null like weighting to be thieved off the
blacks. ``Just walk on a heading of 146 degrees for about six
weeks and then turn left at the big treacherous lake - after
aboot tree or fawn days you will come to the meeting place of
the hunters of the giant moth.''

Only when they, salivating at the thought of open land, sent
out the nest mob, there was no way of knowing what was
happening or where in the heabens they wore cause there weren't
no lake anymore. There was mud and there was a puddle of two,
but nothing lake like atoll.

This was all during the rain of the king that lost ameryca as a
colony?

Yes one and the same. After the shotglass herd round the world
the carolinas were no longer finer to be in, for the dominion.
They had to open up this here harsh south land for a penal
land. Sent my dad down here to try and farm and aggie up this
dirt, so thin and unhappy. This land is not fit out for
farming. No more than a thin sheet of lifeless loveless dust.
Not fit for nuttin.

That was after the wars with the French? After the nappy headed
ogre had blown apart Oetz? During that epoch of out radical
war, the last time we fought for our republic? Shartly after
peterloo, was it not? Fought and last, he trailed off quietly
to himself, our poor homeland so far, so near the perfidious
punic faithless.

All 'tis true you be saying, me old pea was train sported down
here then, over the waves the family and I was no more than a
wee bairn. he stood up to the capitalists of the iron works,
stood up for the rites of the poor'uns and 'pressed and for
this was sent away. Sent to this place with the heat and the
flies and so far from god. Still I (he shrugged his shoulders)
- he was lucky he was not left on a giblet swinging tin the
breeze of slight spring thyme zephyrs as no more than stinkin'
raven meat. Me old pa made a fortune stealing guns to the
blacks, selling grog to the white and sealing wax to the
administrators. For what did he care? Not one damn tinkers?
Ofter all he had seen and been. Me speaking clear of
insurrection week and all. What diddle he care if some brutish
traipsers got themselves all plug shout up from the blacks. He
felt, he thought he was evening the sides up a brittle battle.

But not me, the elder of the twain coot ringers boomed standing
'stride the kings highway on his tin coated hobby whore. I
drank through his tyre legacy, drank through the monies of me
brudders as well. When they found out they cashed me clean
across the country from new holland to perth. But I fooled 'em
and one. That howl crone of baftards. I walked all the way back
east again and settled myself here abouts, in this roiling
alleghenies, these plains of wine growing load grape stone, to
grapple drink deadly mine ownly soul, to drink myself into an
ice cold coughin'. Doing a damned fine job of it, if I can be
aloud to blow my own trumpet. Of curse there are sometimes some
nights alone in the darling I miss me auldjin, he would banjo
me arse morning noon and night. But the devil take it, if he
did not make the best poteen this side of 'eavens gator. He
stank all the live long do dah day of mash and baccy and the
sour stench of those who have been heavily defeated, and now
only hold bitter subversion in their sole. He could do nothing
with this sun bleached country, this flood of stinking plains.

This was all the same exact yeasterday our Joesph Wilde walked
and walked and christened this disappearing lank that the first
all at once people called Weereewa (which translates into bad
water) after that maddening renown barking king. George the
turd.

The very only royal ruler and head of the Anglia kirke (with
neuter bounty nort grapes but foundling the bullocks of entry
the heighth?) who in his mania would piss purple?

Aye the very same one. His royal water, witch of corking we
know is belter than our very poor ammoniac water, was likened
to the robes of Kaiser, tyrian purple at the time it was
worsted more than gold.

And the twin old geezer had a good old coughing chuckle choke
chain of dragging marleys mucus rattle and spittle all over
about that one dim joke. Look at the pair of 'em all belly
bloated on me barley like a poisoned puppy's belly. Aye 'tis
true, 'tis sham full. The victualer drawled, drowsing on his
clay pipe. Absinthe minded talking to his doughter who filled
in as a bar maid. In their eyes is something lacking, what they
need's a damn good whacking. Dirt mumping tilda piggies. It
will be grateful when carriages of law and civilised mien come
jumbucking out these parts. Ones like dem prayer taint much
more worth them blasted godless blacks. She raised her braun
eyes, swore an oath (Ye God and His little fishes) and dropped
back to doing and saying gnawed upon mutton bones. She dreamed
fierce of heading out to the smoke as soon as she had any more
than a hand of scratch. Oh to see a young officer in his
uniform, she stood stock dreaming and moist.

'Tis true 'tis sad our days of old bill salad are long gone
past auld cobber. No more a roving will we go, no more torn
into the darkling adwentures weller we will have me old Samuel
and bubblesqueak. Sighing they no languid build up men like
that. The type of man what could go into the bleeding helpless
wilderness desert and build new stations new cities amid the
neat and duty fly blown.

And Malone sites cross legged alone on his isle. Quiet he can
no longer find any need to speak more than a growl or tow at a
time. He can not hear too well, he is sew olde he can barley
read. He has to get his house girl, quite and pert little thing
she is has as one of her many petite duties to write out the
pages of the books he winches to read in large block letter,
and even with that he needs an enlarging glass to make legible
the words. So slowly milton slow he can still read. Indeed that
seems to be all he does these days.

The first burst of a lightning man sun cast iron die bone a
spell upon him, and now Malone alone on his aisle watches as
with each new book devoured, the smashing heap he squats upon
gets bigger and lager. This is a simile analog Malone drag
scratches down his torts both deep and yeller. Our knowledge is
an island and the greater we know, the deeper into
understanding we go, the wider and bigger the island becomes.

And this island, now it is the nurse mouse daughter squeaking,
floats upon a treacle think ocean of chaos, tiring even for
great satan to cross, and happy ignorance. The more we know,
the more out ignorance grows Malone wrote out tantalus angrily
onto the small date book he keepsakes in the hidden linen of
his very wide pocketed grate coast. he found this date book way
back when has was able to drip drop drab work kwiet. Seems some
drug addled hillbilly king chucked it o'er the fence whilst in
a fit of loves first fires (only five or ten cents, but Malone
was not one to spend amore than he had to spend).

As you should be me young bullock strong friend, the bush mane
growled, for such is life. Such is life, his words hanging in
the air, across history, wit nowt a breast of wind to glitter
glide away.