Taranna to
five mile straight
straight as the backbone of a herring
by the string rather than the bow
but up and down like a tinker’s elbow
this tramway ran
straight from Cap’n Booth’s brain-pan
‘cos passage from Hobartown ‘cross Storm Bay
was rough as it runs supply ships yelling
under a southerly burster
from the shallows of Norfolk Bay
flat as a packed mud floor
to the Coal Mines westward, Saltwater River
and south to Arthur’s penal pile
where sixty, seventy rashers of wind
centipedes of the carrying gang
heaved huge, break-back spars on blood-raw
shoulders, where the dockyard gang got the
rheumatics and guggled up to their nappers
thick woods, all bars and spikes and briery wires
like the hatch to a hulk’s hold, rang with the
sawyer’s axe, the chock of log-splitters
and grunts of grubbers, where
basils bit wrists and sparks burnt throats
sniggers!
leastways i could shake a leg
we up jig
a pint o’ skilly for stirrup-cup
stirred our stumps, broke to an egg-trot
tipped our rags a gallop and fizzed away
ankle chains clinking a jingle o’ silver chinks
iron wheels clacketing along hardwood rails
three chapped chums per waggon o’ goods
a hop-pole hallion, a block, in sooth
a vinegar-pisser, bunky and bumptious
and yours ‘umbly
a Billy boy blab and cheekish lurker
our livery o’ woollens dyed canary
forever sopped and dull-stained
the colour o’ wet sand; or magpie
half-black, half-yellow
deadly ugly stingers
run quick as a pudding would creep
and you’d jink tin with a jacketing
‘I’ll fleece your hide, you crawling scoundrel!
Throw your carcass down the Blow-Hole!’
barked a brass-face, a blush on his bowsprit
an officer of feet ‘Look lively ho!’
‘tis certain you don’t need no tripes aboard
we prentices to the tranter trade
might carry live lumber too
such as Captain Copperthorne’s crew
hardly a God permit
this three-horse power newfangle
facing me, bolted upright, a broody gen’leman
with fierce mustarshes, a dial black as thunder
sporting a frock-coat blue as a razor
corduroys and riding boots of black leather
and what’s this, back to me? laced mutton, i
declare, but no Bartholomew baby
in fact, a reg’lar lady, seated
it seemed, on a bag o’ fleas
shying neath the curved rim of a straw bonnet
its pale blue ribbons teazing my peepers
neatly rigged, she was under a cream shawl
that she bunched up in her little fist and coughed
into, a dress of rose pattern and ruffled sleeves
a hint of lavender put me in mind of the Garden
back Home when i was a fancier of flowers
a knight o’ the busk, as t’were and
by and by the wives‘garden
wives of the gen’lemen in red my eyes
she’d take the starch out of any cove of the ken
the stuff of sweet dreams on my pallet, amen
i must’ve stared like a stuck pig
when this pump-thunder started me
‘You there, goggles, cease thine ogling!
Lest you desire a lick o’ the whip!
Remember your station, gyp!’
how could i forget?
ah, the importance of the quality is above bearing
Dame Fortin would ne’er smile ‘pon the likes o’ me
i don’t care a fig flog and be damned!
but faked the civil rig
for there was no turning the corner of Bolt Street
to pike away on nimble feet
peering o’er tops o’ trees a distant skelington
so we rode a wild mare
harum-scarum
helter-skelter
steaming swelter
out o’ kilter
in a muck o’ sweat
we leaped off to push ‘n’ pull
more ‘n’ half a ton o’ hulky stores uphill
roarers hollering
leaping on again, what thrills
the wind in yer jib
o to rush a flat-cock’s frills!
a shoot dipped
toward Long Bay
some mile and a half in downward glide
‘Hold on, the heavy hill! Cross-bars!
Hold hard!’ but we game cocks
couldst not drag the waggons back
try as we might we had no might
without Sir Tristram’s knot – or threat of it!
save the crowbar to try lock a wheel
any stone, bough or full bob
might dispatch our waggons to mortal smash
aye, a tumble would’ve give marm
more than a green gown, i own
so blazed our trail
as the devils rail
halloo-baloo, hullabaloo
beat a thousand wings to woody canopy
a scatter o’ gems in spangles o’ light
trees, ferns, brush dashed by
dash’d brisk
skirrying
huff and ding
o for a drop o’ stingo
by the living jingo
a capital go
halloo! hallo!
not till we hopped in near Earthly Hell
i catched the wind o’ the word
the cut of her la’ship’s jib
sunk and drawn
pocked right plaguily
the shakes’d shook the ghost back into me
Michael Small September 24-October 19, 2007
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