Poem For the Travellers

The air in Sydney is like a glass;

clear and full of water it holds you

in a crisp commercial embrace,

primary colour opinions smiling

inside marble television studios

It’s dirty and rotten in glimpses

As only a big city can be;

gaps in construction facades like missing teeth

puffs of smoke from the cracks in the concrete

ciggie butts chucked under a bush.

In Sydney, even the homeless are assertive

not content to be swept into a corner

they have made a camp on Martin place

a free kitchen, library and beds

for all who can brave the curious stares

of uniformed school excursions.

I’m in favour of the noise and the hustle

Existentially wandering through the crowds

I love people who don’t care

Who you are or what you are doing there

This of course is rare in small towns with the population

of an extended family Christmas gathering

there people notice you without looking

and have already asked a million questions

by the time they make eye contact.

Still I love travelling through Australia

Each place has it’s own character

It’s like visiting an old friend

Sleeping on the couch, meeting their girlfriend,

maybe see what they have in the fridge.

Brisbane isn’t bad if a little self conscious

that it’s a liberal island floating

like a petal in a mangrove swamp of fuckwits

As a result the city is tightly packed and busy

holding in it’s gut to try and fit into a trendy pair of jeans

The Gold Coast isn’t so much a city

As a shopping themed extension of movie world;

concept stores and enormous square shouldered cops

Like angry pimples on a drunken teenagers face at schoolies week

The surf is its redeeming feature

Rough, strong and loud

you can almost wash away

the feeling of being in a departure lounge

staring up at a hundred high rise hotels like bars in a cell.

Break out and regional Queensland has its fair share

Of one street towns with a bain marie and a Telstra phonebox

large middle aged women making bad coffee and watching TV;

the shine of absolutely fucking nothing reflected in the linoleum

You drive through endless fields of sugar cane

just to get anywhere, occasionally glimpsing

flaking weatherboard houses and rusty windmills

that stand out like an actor caught scratching his nuts

in a play that’s far too long and boring.

I liked Mackay because it was quiet and hot

like a brochure for post mining boom economics;

brand new hotels standing next to abandoned vacant lots

empty streets and boarded up shops -

climate change really fucked these towns up

it’s no wonder they’re gagging for another mine.

Rockhampton is pretty unremarkable;

Cowboys with faces like the dry yellow mud

Left behind by the last flood

watching fat white children in school uniforms
like bleached sprinkles on a diabetic donut

getting sunburnt and waving flags in the ANZAC day parade

Castle Rock looms over Townsville

like an edifice to the type of nature

the British tried to conquer

a memory of noble greatness

before we hung out our filthy colonial linen

and crowded it in with factories and shipping.

Darwin is where the humidity finally overcame

all that British ambition and slowed down the whole enterprise

it’s a lazy crocodile that you don’t want to fuck with

bright white eyes in the north’s dark face

spiky green grass telling tall stories in the wind.

Karratha contains some of this Australian tension

A black tarmac line through the desert is all that separates

Ancient indigenous rock art from flaming gas towers

Both perched on the red earth like pyramids not made by men

One natural one artificial but which is which?

Because it’s some kind of capital Perth feels a bit desperate

Like the friend that always wants you to stay for another drink

And ends up wearing underwear on their head to be wacky

Much like Canberra, I actually can’t think of anything

To say about it, so I wont.

Adelaide is a Jekyll and Hyde kind of town

That produces incredible musicians and artists

Distinguished in the eyes of others by

their lack of commercial ambition and love of marijuana

It must be exhausting to be a festival city

bustling with life one moment and asleep the next

Shuffling along enormous empty streets

To have a quiet beer at the Crazy Horse strip club

Suffice to say that Adelaide defies expectations

and manages to produce exciting results

from an atmosphere that is mainly characterised

by the odd conflict of small town boredom in a big city.

The A1 between Adelaide and Melbourne

Is strung with tiny little shitholes

Like plastic beads on an op shop necklace

The locals are usually friendly and curious

But I pray that I never break down in one again

That drive is best done in one go in the dark

Set to fast music with a ready supply of pills

In the glove box and service station pies

Eaten under fluorescent lights.

Ah Melbourne and it’s drunken blue stone alleyways -

I could write a million poems about

the damaged glamour of it’s hipster elegance,

But really, the vain attempt to summarise Australia

In a few pithy lines of dry wit and sarcasm

Is Melbourne enough.

Of course there is a dozen other places that deserve their epitaph

Hobart is like an advert for drinking

strong whiskey in cold weather

Launceston should be avoided at all costs

Ever resilient Lismore has an amazing queer scene

And Newcastle is a great place to make art and watch bar brawls

There is a whole stretch of lovely towns

Along the central coast of NSW that are filled

With artistic expats and refugees from more exciting cities

who couldn’t handle modern urban anxiety

So decided to move to paradise instead

The weak bastards.

That’s not to mention the country

Which holds all this together

The ancient energy of the land that flows

Through it’s curves and bends

Its national parks and farm lands alike

I just wish we could see and love it

For the soaring treasure that it really is

Rather than just something to be saddled

And ridden like a beast of burden.

Still it’s a satisfying thought to travel around

and realise that we have a national culture of sorts.

If Australia was a single person I think

We would be a large bodied farmer and poet of mixed heritage

With hands that are too big and a sunburnt nose

A love of passiona and the odd line of speed

In a bad woollen jumper from the op shop

And keys to a rusty commodore out front

With the window cracked for the dog in the back.

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Not a bad place to come home to really.