BOB GREENHILL BEYOND THE WESTERN TIERS

Black as darkmans over Hell’s Gates,

Matthew’s devil foot, fanged and flamed.

Begs his case, blabs and blubs, chops the whiners

To be left to lie, die a-mouldering, natural;

Not a scatter of sucked-dry bones.

‘For God’s sake, Bob, do me no ill!  I’m pickles.

Ever the best of mates, eh?  True trouts.’

Then he falls to raving, spitting white broth.

Suspects, does Matthew . . .

That his flesh will answer our needs.

Dear Joy, thieving croppy pal, my lovey,

So peaked and proper poorly.

Pretty thick we were, tempted by Kemp’s schooner.

Such a bold and brass-faced trick!

Together we stood a flogging from bully-back Jeffries,

Our sullen, silent chums in circle pressed to gander.

Thirty seconds lapsed twixt lashes, full fifty o’ em,

The keenest first splitting flesh clean.

Every stroke on ‘Now!’ cut a crimson line neck to loins.

Knopwood, you devil’s advocate of the hum-box!

The pot calls the kettle black arse,

Alway striking blows ‘gainst tender affections.

Fetched a lagging, Matt and me, to Devil’s Island.

Felling pine on Kelly’s Basin, we bolted

From the sawpit’s teeth, creeped up on the overseer lag,

And eight of us cranks rowed the harbour and scuttled

Faster than trunks of Huon shunted down the slide,

Pinching loaves from the coal gang’s side.

Grubbed and grovelled so far from old Sarah:

Button-grass plains, brushiest parts to jungling briars.

Girdled by dead-logged streams of rushing silver,

Stark-struck peepers of creatures fantastical.

We bent our course by the peak of Frenchman’s Cap,

Eastward bound by sun and stars,

Clawing at brambly beech and midden-mast pine

Over basalt boulders hard as shot,

Flesh torn from bones by darts of brush,

No trod-down tracks, no lamps in distant huts.

The summit of our dreams?  Stock runs on grassy plains,

Fresh mutton, soaking our face in rum, sweetest repose.

Starved as kites, we wagged our under-jaw,

Our kangaroo-skin jackets dead-wet we’ve ate,

Broiled fern roots, peppermint shoots, tea-tree,

Golloped our fill of Bodenham, Mather,

Dalton’s heart and liver . . .

Two of our chicken-hearts slid away in the scrub.

Or swallowed in swamp or peat or gorge’s jaw.

Preferred their chains to our little ceremony.

Fare thee well too, Matt Travis . . .

I do compassionate your sufferings.

Will waste not your precious sacrifice.

So set these meaty mincers to swing the haft,

Swift whet and whir, breath-beating whump.

Now needs secure myself, secret the axe,

Keep hawkish watch.

And next Pearce, that rat-ribbed runt.

                               Michael Small             December 16-25, 2006