Smoke Encrypted Whispers (5 page)

the pyromaniacs of the gods were kicking it

into that desert sunset

upon a fire-pink, burner-blue horizon line

blossoms cherry red

and naked solar flares drowning into hibiscus hell-flowers

dancing a wake for the dying light

above a necropolis of mulga and spinifex

fueling until darkness

when the tourists overdose on shooting stars

the lark of min-min lights

on the petals of midnight bloom

as the ghostriders take up watch

illuminated into the pitch

by the sun-bleached bones

of dry-spell roadkill

I know this stretch in my blood

this is where the
Megaleia rufa
song

cries louder than any car stereo

the dreaming that suddenly crawls onto the road

and takes it

out of the living—

the ones who fantasised constantly on their own immortality

behind the wheel

but this stretch of road ...
this stretch

is where the extroverted angels turn their heads

as the flash that is stronger than steel

launches onto the highway

and brings those of the present

forward to their own judgment day

refraction of light

from split seconds

to eternity

what
more can one say

on the cruelty of an arid summer's day

that cannot be surpassed

in the arias of the dry season;

upon the dining table of the Invader

there were those who thought

that they could simply mimic creation

and plough through this land

inventive

but blindfolded

and the bitumen vine of wandering impetus

drove right through the bora-ring

and knocked our phone off the hook

forever

forcing us to stand out on the shoulder of the road

looking for a lift,

even though

we weren't really lusting

that 18-wheeler of a lifestyle

driving into the next millennium

we've been too used

to feeling a kinship

with the discarded and shredded

black pieces of truck tire

on the fringes of the big road

us ‘damper-feet' may just pull up a seat on the shoulder

watch

and observe

how you lead-foots fend for yourselves

as the surfers twist before the white squall ahead

the encroaching absalom before us all

an electronic highway

the salt creeps in

grain after grain

destructive in its microbe-brevity,

you see patches of evidence;

grey and relapsing

skeletal stance of scrub

liver spots on a once flourishing skin of

natural algorithms,

and the mouths out here will murmur,
die-off!

the saline schematics of slow death

that are very hard to swallow

at the end of a brief Warrego sojourn

hungry and gravel strung

after searching for days and only finding emptiness

accompanied by road-trains heading for the slaughterhouse

little piggy eyes staring

through the slats of the trailers

with a beige, yet invisible shit-mist that stays up your nose

and gets into everything

and like the classical lion with a thorn in its paw

Brisbane lurks on the other side of those hills,

smooth green monoliths

tickled by the arias of Harold Blair

as they reflect the silky breeze

that sometimes carries the perfume

from the golden skin of cowgirls:

award winning, lightly browned pastry,

best pies and cream-buns this side of the Great Divide

where the road-trains pause

and truckers chow down on sausage rolls and waves of sweet,

darkened milk

letting piggy buy some time

before the boners get the best of him

nothing out here at the moment but crackling radio waves

that deliver piggy his requiem;

Charlie Pride, easy-over-agriculture-blues

white spark backdrop

off the forms seduced by blackness,

I hate travelling at night

unable to stomach the singing of the lonely road

or the whispers

of a deadman's mouth harp in the breeze

bringing on premonitions of sudden engine failure

and,

how the halogen lamps ruin the night

and sometimes expose the

memories you're running from

I see the faces

I dare not speak of in focus

as my ritual humming of nursery rhymes

keeps in time with a pounding in my chest

desperate, until I reach my destination,

that the hairy hands in the back seat

won't materialise from my

retrospective sins

and take a deserved piece of me

or merely,

just a taste

the dark sentinels passed on the road

silent and empty

and what was discarded

or didn't fall under the auctioneer's hammer

is stuffed into industrial bins

like entrails at a meat works

the beast was gutted,

a victim on the chopping block

of economic rationalism

when the bosses called it quits

now a quiet and morose tune threads

through the broken windows

like silenced bullets fired into a grand old elephant

as it stands; the losing favorite

unable to move

start a new life, progress

as the ghosts have all

but moved on too

another late Thursday night ... and I'm wondering

why I bothered to use expensive cologne

when the stench of the bar drowns it out

me and four other passengers tonight...

in the getaway car...

escaping the crimes that eat us away,

one of my brethren looks at my dark-skinned gait

I acknowledge his staunch Mediterranean jaw,

lines in his face like a topographic map

the cuneiform of worry, from the old country and centuries of killing

here she comes!
fake blonde along the linoleum counter ... this driver that calls everyone ‘love'

she's at the wheel now ... this getaway car of many campaigns ... used, abused, restored and rigged

and everyone wanting a window seat

you can name your poison

but you can't choose who'll sit next to you

and Christ! the punter on the other side

he's got a face like the dartboard in a country pub

he's taken a few hits over the years

he'll definitely be in for a long run tonight

an interesting companion for this trip

then the driver asks me what cologne I'm wearing

and suddenly I'm riding shotgun in the passenger seat

getting death stares from four lonely men,

all dreaming of ‘love' and that supermarket blonde rinse

everyone taking in the fumes of the bar

as they do every other night between the blue flashes

of either greyhounds or trotters

and the fading smell of lamb chops and countermeal mash

everyone running and trying to win

on two legs and all-fours

bets on

bets off

night racing through the suburbs

of white stucco dreaming

the menacing glow of the city's tainted body behind us

as the custodians of the estate domiciles

spy through the holes in their lace curtains

at the howl of our twin-cam war party

drowning out the dying heartbeat of this captured landscape

our small bodies shivering a
techno
pulse

hugging into corners

accelerating onto the straights

a growling junkyard dingo under the bonnet,

the beast made up from parts here and there

born for the walkabout rally

black feet pumping racing pedal to floor

breaking the silence of the settlers' sacred sites

enveloped in shadows when not haunted by the silhouettes of urban myth

mind navigation into the bitumen labyrinth

these areas we treat with the same contempt as laid upon us

as middle-class Australia prepares for another evening

darkness and the dreaming of jaywalkers and nightstalkers

yes, it cradles us too

like the Earth Mother did the warriors of old

but we're too scared to look behind us or in the rear-view mirror

to catch a wink from Voodoojack

and his perpetual black grin

got up off the couch

and immediately the room cleared of its winged creatures

flapping in time

to an abdominal exercise machine on the glowing box,

falling asleep again without turning off the television

the evangelists would be up soon

with their healing tentacles

of credit card lust

my mind cleansed by amber spirits,

leaving a pallet as rough as cindery thongs

the last remnants of yesterday

hanging off my crumpled clothing

flashbacks of a late-night telephone call to the ex-wife

like a scientist hell-bent on an answer for cancer

the sun was on the way up

over a cloud–splangled banner

as the jury slept

time to get on the road again

and grab a radar-gun breakfast

It's 5a.m. in August

and the cold floor of the bus depot is occupied

by the rampant and naked feet

of snot-nosed pygmies

a static background

that resembles a single-mother's symposium

everyone has packed in haste and is now ready to bail

while the force that has driven them here

remains absent

a pre-flight environment stirring

to the waking groans of a cappuccino-making slave

and an honour guard assembled for the dearly departing;

the smooth peanut-butter-coloured skin of European

backpackers armed with translation books

he nurses this big ol' sedan into the service station

going about the business of a regular consumer

shrugging off that 95 cents a litre in fuel prices

and it may as well be 99,

but there's no point complaining

when something in his eyes flash

like he too, right there, has just aged to 99 points

putting the hose into the gas tank

he's almost unconscious in his stance, almost grey

as if clouds have hijacked his mind's eye

and he doesn't even notice the petrol spilling under his car

like an oasis seeping through the texture of a desert floor

it massages the concrete

it brings us all to lick our lips at the sight

a naked, refined body of fuel

wasted at 95 cents a litre,

the station attendant screams

at the rising sea of gasoline

and our aging friend comes back

sorry,
he says, in the waking,
my father just died...

lurching onto the highway

sporting a rushed pair of $5.95 truck-stop sunglasses

facing off with this intermittent black line,

its cusps hidden in gullies forging south

as it does northward

curvaceous segments of road

like black smiles and frowns

either gazing in the direction of the Pacific or the hinterlands,

dark horses upon the clearing of the dreamtime tabernacles

this stretch from Brisbane to the Gold Coast

since the 70s, its character has been raped too

in what was briefly Joh's country

yes!

multi-lane monument to the Gods of old and new,

the bandits touched by the spiritual fingers of radar guns

and speed cameras,

the all-knowing, all-seeing

deo optimo maximo; on the tongues of the rogues

yet, by God's hand

what happened to the beasts that inhabited the African Lion Safari?

and did the UFO above the roadhouse just fly away?

or can we even recognise the cemetery

where the solitary Anzac stands

that the surfers would salute

to secure a pact with Huey and his crystal palace on the early morning tide?

protected from the glare by $5.95 truck-stop sunglasses

no one respects the speed limits

and no one owns up to the roadside crosses

'cause I know

there is no God—

there is only the living

and trailers of the dead