Shane - a good poet

SHANE: ALL THAT IS WAITING

SHANE's Notes
ALL THAT IS WAITING
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Today at 11:18

Iron roof glimmers from a fresh summer storm

Children’s laughter from nearby backyards resounds

All relax in the respite from a long summers dawn

Let loose the blind blinded by the glow so warm

Dew gathers and glistens from each blade of grass

While magpies busily work by lessons of past

The garbage truck has come and gone so fast

Morning becomes day like new members of a cast

The early morning joggers trot out their path

Clear mist from a mirror after refreshing bath

All smooth and revived readied to start

The neighbours dog still incessantly barks

What new adventure awaits outside timber gate

The frangipani bougainvillea a perfect picture create

A scene from a painting on a canvas of time

Nature performs the rituals in tune so fine

Leaves drop the jumpers come for winter to stop

Wood gatherers bring fuel and money exchanged

Temperatures plummet with hands stuffed in pockets

Figures dance and seek refuge from wind on a corner

The sun no longer visits so early on mornings

How I complained of the heat on those dawning’s

Birds huddle close and sing only in warning

As endless legions of ants miss crumbs on their falling

We blow in cupped hands as if shouting and calling

Shivering and shaking freezing and aching

Wishing for summer sand beach and sun baking

Wind rattles the windows to a fear of them breaking
The landscape is familiar but constantly changing

From the veranda is witnessed a storm in the making

It’s hot once again and all animals start mating

As I relax in my chair I contemplate all that is waiting

From distance comes lightening and thunder explodes

A crescendo of violence erupts from high in the sky

Huge droplets of rain catch all passers by

As if by coincidence to help quench the dry

Mud trampled floors and dodging the hail

The weekend hustle and bustle of a crowded market sale

To ponder the direction of a slow moving snail

A mosquito or two and milk that’s gone stale

Paw Paw trees that bend under their load

Fruit bats that screech in trees over the road

Cast off the jetty catch a fish called a toad

Rivers swell then threaten to flood your abode

We come together to eat drink and celebrate life

There’s a lizard out back causing the cat some strife

As we watch the sun set through the flies that are rife

The crickets signal the end of a day in my life

The Mystery

The Mystery
A signature
Roman numerals.
Who was he?
Why did he write?
Name in concrete.
A mystery.
But gives away
Secrets.
A fan of
Rudyard Kipling.
Concrete circles
buried
Half a drum.
Out bush
Where dust swirls.
Across spinifex.
Distant station.
Untold story.
21 drums of concrete!
Words written
With knife bold.
And signed:
J. Coten, July, 1960.

Fire!

Scenario: Cue!

Men, fronting up

To the bar

Elbows bent

Tongues wagging

Thirst not spent.

A wife waits

With little ones

Outside

In the heat

On street wide.

Rig roars

To a standstill

Truckie with thirst

Slams door

Weather cursed.

Action: Smoke!

All in the bar.

Wife listens.

'Sizzle!'

'Spit' and 'crackle!'

'Fizzle!'

'Fire!'

She cries.

Men erupt

Faster than flies

Bar empty,

Rig afire.

Men dash

To and fro

One only

Walks slow.

Rig driver,

With extinguisher!

Dales Gorge Pool

Dales Gorge Pool

Lofty battlements

rear their heads

azure sky.

Unfinished forts
of red

confuse the eye.

Built by God

ancient rocks

packed tight.

Creamy spinifex

Snappy Gum

atop scarp.

Deep pools

in the light,

in the cool.

Red earth,

red rock,

dark pool.

This was my four wheel drive that I went all over the North West of Western Australia during 1996 and again in 1997. These photos were taken in 1996 at Tom Price, an iron ore town, at my son's home after a very long and tiring journey from near Gascoyne Junction in the central Gascoyne area, driving 300-odd kms south to Meekatharra ahead of an approaching cloud band, via a very slippery and flooded Landor-Meekatharra Road and crossing the equally-flooded Landor River. On arrival at Meekatharra, it was a further three hundred kms to get to Tom Price via Wittenoom totalling over 600 kms in one day. The easier roads traveling west from where I was were closed by the police and the Gascoyne Junction Shire because of flooding and Meekatharra was the only way out. So off I slipped and slithered just before noon as the pitter patter of rain was heard on the tin roof of Dalgety Downs station homestead, where I had been for the past eleven days! My son was horrified at the vehicle's state when I arrived at his place in the early morning of the next day, having camped behind a truckie parked at Kumarina, but I brusquely informed him it was an off-road vehicle and that's where I had been. Most of the Landor-Meekatharra Road was atop what is called the Cunyu land system, which was really an old river bed that once ran between the Gascoyne and Murchison Rivers. A great adventure. On my arrival in Meekatharra about 8:30 that night, when I pulled up at the post office to call the station I had left, and my son at Tom Price to say I was 'out', two geologist bound for Newman wandered over to my vehicle for a chat, wanting to know where I had come from and where I was going. They were pleased that they would be following bitumen all the way north to Newman and told me that the Landor-Meekatharra road had been closed by the Meekatharra police because more rain had fallen and that there was one vehicle coming through - me! I had to really push the Feroza door to get out, and was astounded to view the Feroza, mud everywhere, and it was dropping in the middle of the Meekatharra main drag in great blobs! And Meekatharra I might add, was bone dry! No rain there at all. The phone call to Dalgety Downs took place and Debbie informed the Gascoyne Junction police that I was out and safe, and they in turn, I knew, would inform Meekatharra. So I grabbed a steak sandwich at the roadhouse and carried on up the smooth bitumen to Tom Price, many miles past Newman in the Hamersly Range.

Lena's Trials

This is my novel, a fantasy, that concerns a ficticious Apache legend involving two poeple, one from Australia the other from the USA. The work has been proofread and is currently in the hands of a literary agent. The novel revovles aroundLena, who goes throug fur trials because she is a reluctant recipientof the legend. The other party, Cabrito, finds himself working hard to beat the trials, get Lena to be part of what she is to do with him, and stay alive! Meanwhile I work on its sequal Cab and Lena whee there is a fifth trial, this one aimed at Cab. A war!

Passages to the Past: Royal Harlot Giveaway!

Passages to the Past: Royal Harlot Giveaway!