Tuesday 1st May Dawn Patrol Poem

  This mornings ABC Dawn Patrol poem was inspired by a story told to me by someone from Tennessee.......Thanks Alicia and hopefully Tom from Delaware will send the audio through and I'll have learned how to put up on here before to much time passes.             

                ANA’s MUSHROOM PATCH

Winter was as good as over, almost gone the cold and gloom,

Spring time in Tennessee and the flowers were out in bloom.

The smell of new mown hay was wafting through the air,

And high up in the trees birds were nesting everywhere.

A young woman walked the fields marveling at natures show,

At all the wondrous flowers and how quickly they did grow.

Her name was Ana and in her left hand she carried a bowl,

She picked the odd mushroom while out for her spring time stroll.

Looking up her smile vanished and her body began to tense,

For there as happened every year, a car was parked beside the fence.

A group of townies always came and her mushrooms they would steal,

The thought that they were here again almost made Ana squeal.

It was the same people as last year and most likely the year before,

There was no doubt in Ana’s mind this was a declaration of war.

Her Dad had tried to catch these people just to give them a talking to,

But they’d see him coming; jump in the car and quickly they’d shoot through.

Ana knew what was required here, a little stealth and cunning,

It would do no good for her to go towards them running.

Like a hunter in the woods she began to carefully stalk her prey,

This time they would not avoid a talking to; they would not get away.

A large man was reaching through the fence when he got a sharp surprise,

For suddenly a teenage girl from nowhere seemingly appeared before his eyes.

She a lectured him on trespass, she gave him a real dressing down,

Then politely suggested he get in their car and return to blooming town.

Well the man he was indignant and a brief argument did commence,

As he righteously maintained he stood the correct side of the fence.

Well Ana could not contradict this statement obviously it was true,

But then he leaned up against the fence as though right on queue.

Ana immediately saw the gaping hole in this large man’s defense,

So politely pointed out that his belly, now hung on her side of the fence.

Well the man turned bright red; mumbled something she couldn’t hear,

To his departing back she said `And don’t come back next year!`

                                                                        © Corin Linch 30/3/2012

The Ultimate Luxury

            Anybody who has spent time in the bush can sympathise with this poem. Written purely for a laugh but has more than a grain of fact in it.  When I first started in the stock camp toilet paper was not part of the stores taken bush, so you make use of what you got newspaper if available, rocks and leaves. Grass was not much good; imagine having grass seeds left behind getting back on your horse and sitting on them for an hour or so. Hygiene in the camps was rudimentary to say the least; sure we washed our hands etc. before eating and after a walk over the flat, but the beef we ate was often beginning to turn. Curry powder was a favourite with camp cooks to disguise the taste of sour meat and the old stand-by Worcestershire Sauce was always in the tucker box.

  Gut aches were common place , in hindsight I reckon it was probably food poisoning, some water also caused upset stomachs. I was never able to handle the water at Cattle Creek a dam on Moola Bulla, within a few hours of drinking that water I’d be constantly bolting down the flat, it was at these times the ultimate luxury would have been a porcelain dunny. Although speaking to one bloke who spent some time in stock camps back in the 60’s he thought a tin of pears would have been the ultimate in luxury for him.

THE ULTIMATE IN LUXURY

I smoke my pipe, stoke the fire then I wander from the camp,

There’s dew about this morning and the ground is rather damp.

But I feel an urge upon me, as my belly gives a rumbling sound,

I shall have to wander out and bare my backside to the ground.

So I’ll take a shovel with me, so I can bury what I do,

After all no-one wants to know where you’ve been to pooh.

I’ll be squatting on my heels somewhere deep in the Aussie bush,

And I’m a little bit uncomfortable as I give me bowels a push.

There was times when I bruised me leg, so I was jacked up on a stone

That’s when I started thinking, gee; it would be nice to be at home.

Then with newspaper in hand, I’d be seated, reading all the news,

And quietly arguing with meself; about all those journalistic views.

Sitting there warm and comfortable, I may hum a quiet refrain,

Instead I’m here swotting flies, as I squat here and strain.

I tell yer it’s not real pleasant with your britches round your knees;

With a winter easterly blowing and yer what’s its, swinging in the breeze.

And I have no tissue paper that’s soft, strong and very tough,

We make use of things on hand; in the bush we’re pretty rough.

Now I know this tale is strange but just imagine if you were me;

Quietly going about your business while beneath a giant Carbeen tree.

You are nearly finished and you are about to wipe your bum;

A King Brown is slithering past, then your way decides to come.

When that happens you wouldn’t think it strange; and you wouldn’t think it very funny,

No mate, you’d reckon the ultimate in luxury;

was a bloody inside Porcelain dunny.

                                                      © Corin Linch

Neither snake in these photos is a King Brown although in the dark we thought the one in the top photo was  sadly he turned out to be a Rock Python the other photo is a Black headed Python.  Audio of this poem hopefully coming soon..

        Australian rhyming poetry or as it is commonly known Bush Poetry goes back to the time of the first fleet and is a way of telling stories both true and false so as to hold the listeners interest.
Bush poetry is a generic term for poetry told with both rhythm and rhyme, it should flow with an almost musical cadence.  Of course one of the best known, if not the best known Australian poem is A.B. (Banjo) Paterson's `The Man From Snowy River`  The Banjo's work along with `The Ballad of the Drover` by Henry Lawson and  P.J.Hartigan (John O'Brien) poem `Said Hanrahan` were standard fare to be learned in English classes back in the sixties.  These poems are part of Australia's heritage and help recall our history but sadly there importance seems to have been forgotten by today's education system.
Bush poetry does not have to be about the bush (country-side) for those who don't know what the bush is, it can be about the city as Lawson wrote in `Faces in the Street` and many Aussie troops wrote poetry in the trenches of Gallipoli and the Somme in fact every conflict that Australia has been involved in somewhere a serviceman wrote a rhymed verse you can almost bet on it.

My interest in poetry developed in school where I suppose I imagined that I was the Man from Snowy River racing down the mountain with not a care in the world, reading and reciting that poem would give me goose bumps.  For the annual school magazine I would try and write a verse or two some of which made it and some did not.   During the 70's while in the stock-camp at Moola Bulla I occasionally tried penning a verse or two generally on scrap paper or in diaries all of which is now lost or thrown away.

In the 1990's though I began writing again and this time saving what I had written and in about August 2002 I began reciting my work on Early morning ABC radio here in Western Australia and have become a regular now for 10 years.  The response from early morning listeners was to me very humbling and because of that response I have had the good fortune to be able to self publish 4 books of my writings and have enough poems put aside for number five.
Most of the poems I write are about things I had seen or experienced in my time as a stockman and head-stockman working in the Kimberley and Pilbara area of West Australia and yes I will admit the old favorite, poetic license is used at times.

Through this blog I hope to restore interest in the Aussie way of telling a yarn or three with written and audio poetry going up, once I learn how to do it.