I Am Not Your Carpet Ride
For the past week, give or take, I've been living on a cattle station in the Australian interior. A forty-plus-thousand acre ranch in the Aussie outback. Forty-thousand acres of nothing but bush. God love it. The outback cowboy lifestyle is every ounce of brilliance that brilliant can get. No television. No internet. No ridiculous air conditioning. Just endless horizon, fresh air, blue sky and free dust. One might be inclined to wonder what the hell one does in a place like this being in the sticks and all, but even a place in the middle of buttfuck-nowhere has accommodating avenues for the thrill-seeker in us all. Horse back rides, camping beneath the stars "City Slickers" style, nasty off-road tracks for quad bikes and motor cross veterans. You can take on the real challenge that is throwing a boomerang properly or opt for the easier task of cracking a bullwhip. Then if you get in good with the staff there are firearms to play with and helicopter rides, or you can do as I did and make and paint your very own didgeridoo from scratch (more on this bit later). Of course if you lack imagination you can do what everyone else does. Drink beer.
Out here in the sticks the atomsphere is always festive. Full of outback bushman, adventuresome travelers and cowboys. You know, the guys wearing overly-tight jeans sporting a wide-brimmed hat and leather belt showcasing a buckle the size of a Peterbuilt grill. You just have to love the place. There's so much of the cowboy lifestyle I love. Metal dishware, cattle and horses, line dancing, dusty boots, wholesome fresh foods, wide open spaces and the best part of all, no pretense. No illusion. And figuratively speaking, no bullshit. There's just good-ol' fashioned sun up to sun down work. A place where who you are and what you do is all that matters. I often wonder why life isn't always that simple.
* On a random side note, I owe a debt of thanks to the fantastic girls of Airlie beach for sparking the interest that became the passion to write poetry. In the smokey ambiance of an open campfire I sipped my cowboy coffee under the star-filled outback sky and something quivered from within. My poetry career began. A massive middle-finger of thanks to you girls, wherever you may wander.
Magical Eyelash On a magical eyelash
Where change kissed by with tears of time
I fled a home not long ago for the promise of the sky
Dashed away by frightful showers of smoke and grey
Were delinquent virgin eyes and rhythmic waves of disarray
The meaning of a meaningful life pawned along the way
Til what remained was the kernel reduction of meaningless fray
I chased a star but found the sun instead
I chased the moon but found the night had fled
After stolen distance put to death
Gleans me nothing more beneath my heels of tread
I have found another way
Through autumn leaves or summer song
Winter worship and spring time gone
Flourished on the stove was a pan and dish
The entrée vivid fresh and birthed by a wistful wish
Magical fruits against the backdrop of a weary bruised sky
Was stove-top construction of my most glorious pie
Topped with truth, love, health and sugar just raw
Fashioned and hand-bound without nary an illusion of flaw
I chased a star but found the sun instead
I chased the moon but found the night had fled
After stolen distance put to death
Gleans me nothing more beneath my heels of tread
I have found another way
Arose a Phoenix within my skin
And death by peck to all that I've been
Like a flush of tired red I stumbled to the dust
With flame of joyful endless tears and a kiss of liquid fuss
Looking for the cause to everything I've done
After sun and moon and sun I've realized only
Nothings ever done
I chased a star but found the sun instead
I chased the moon but found the night had fled
After stolen distance put to death
Gleans me nothing more beneath my heels of tread
For I have found another way