1. |
Ghost on the Breakaway
04:03
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i feel like an invincible gust
a stone orb skimming
in the parallax treeline
river yellow, canola green
nothing could mean more than being here
in your passenger seat
we mark down what we see
scattered jewels made for you and me
my driving friend
knows about
a gravel grove ruled long ago
to be a resting place
so we lived here in a window
with circumstances bending and blurring
a cockatoo crying
off in the distance
reminds me of the days i couldn’t see
the value of a place to be
and when the wheels gave way
to rushing air and scraping bark
to dried up grease
and bore-brown fence
i opened my eyes and i could see
the whole thing from a bird’s eye view
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2. |
Meltham
04:16
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am i the thistle or the flowering myrtle?
is a question i faced in the morning
while I was packing up our clothes
in the backyard for the last time.
and is it the green in the garden
that keeps us holed up inside together?
or is it that i dream almost every time
of men cutting me with pocket knives
well an ember flies out of my feet
everytime a car sees me cross the street
everytime i think about how to dress
and when i disappear for a while
no one sees the sparks brighter than you
but I sure would never expect
you to have to stand and wait, wet towel at the ready
for the first hint of a forest fire
oh every day i’m thinking about
that endless road we’re gonna glide down
and all the passing signs and junctions
towards hills i know we’ll never climb
some of them flicker in and out of view
some cast shadows over the car
some of them have names of mountains
but someone somewhere must have been pretty optimistic
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3. |
Snake Trails
04:33
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there’s a spot i know down frankland way, on the muddy inlet
i remember it kindly
where there’s sea behind the hills, and the air can’t catch ya
all the days fling past
i felt a warm and guttural sense that there was a purpose
that was the first time
but there are moments when I feel, to be perfectly honest
it was the last time too
and if i went back there tomorrow, would I feel alright?
and would you be there?
would we sit above all those sticks and watch the dark surround us?
i’d like to think we would
well there’s time for going back, packing up and dispersing
back to ditches past
yea there’s a time for fucking off and makin mountain molehills
but it isn’t now. no, now is anything but
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4. |
One Night on the Eyrie
06:48
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One night on the eyrie
Where I stayed with Jackson
I was remitted a terror
I'll live again and again.
Past the frozen hot rivers
Where the mulgas are golden
And all through the night
Branches rattle and scream
He and I went out walking
Before the sun would start yawning
Past the orb webs and samphire
To the salt lake expanse
Against my deepest insistence
The hill growing in the distance
Was our only sightline
Once the sad starlight came.
Our angled path grew steadfast
Each bootstep pumping sandfalls
When Jackson’s eyes deflated
At the sight of the cairn.
We stood before a figure
Some spokesman supernatural
Electric and decaying
I rocked in awe and in shame
and that final figure spoke
When you two
stood upon that eyrie
Pissed into the ocean green
Did the cockatoos reply to you?
Did the sandalwood smell free?
Did your rind really dissipate
In the ants’ long, long exchange
From the rivermouth at Fitzy
To your home on the range?
he spoke again to conclude
it might look like
Life was shit forever
Here in this dried up creek
But tonight I find myself
Prepared to finally speak.
Boys, lock that x-trail
Drive it north along my cheek
To the bottom of Lake Argyle
That’s where you’ll find your trees.
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5. |
Rain on Mount Jackson
06:50
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6. |
Cut Corner Death Song
03:45
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If i had a car
i'd go out upper swan
top off my paypass on
thirty hammer n tongs
scout out the wind
head east for the rain
Leave the door wide open
leave the phone to erupt
there’s a figure the ditchside
his feet are unfailing
he fingers my window
and says to me such:
Well, the road is a pill
a place for water to land
surrounded with sand
behind yer polyurethane hands
and it curls up and ties
hills together
There's a station i know
belongs to nobody now
the cow fence was bowled down
flomaxtra comes stinging in
the sky’s way down inside
I hear bronzewings retreating
It’s a sweltering seat
where I’ve placed myself now
my eyes left my head
and inside’s weepin out
leakin the story
final scenes of a youth
There's a terminal flair
to the voice in the air
as it cuts up my limbs
leaves me dry in the skin
i crawl near,
the gully appears.
This gravel's judging
this month is repeating
the car charred and bleating
hot on the trail of a dust cloud
reflecting the colour of my thought
as I'm leaving
Into that crag
where I'm seen screaming
grisly off-white grass
finally castrates my being
oh i am a wickerthing
i hope myself and bones explode out into meaning
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7. |
Yilgarn
03:37
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8. |
Only the Crows
02:48
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we were walking thru the streets of ashfield
honeyeater sat upon the windshield
magpie scraping up a porch arrangement
wagtail turned up when he hesitated
corella roving looking for a helping hand
baudins mourning for their deceased homeland
kookaburra eyed us from a yard birdbath
major mitchell gave his last bronchitis laugh
but only the crows were singin today
for this dying ‘scape, there’s nothing left to say.
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9. |
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Sometimes seeing the river
Is pointing nowhere
But all the condemned faculties
Of some honest work horse
In a stolen chop shop cycle
Sometimes seeing the river
Reflects only important stars
Diving birds deliver letters
Then take only what they need
Horizons on all sides
Sometimes seeing the river
Is a sunlit hammerhead
Plucking out the pavement
Pipes and grounding wires
From borrowed flophouses
Sometimes there is no river
Just a broken fountain
Spitting on open concrete
Soaking up nothing but the heat
Only sometimes dreaming
--------------------------------
Sometimes we go past landmarks
And notice only the smaller things
Not how the road might often loop around
Not all the sidestreets with familiar names
Not the whole hillside gleaming
So when I saw Mount Observation
I thought it would be the final time
That all the patterns were congealing
Shining light on a place for me
And my temporary archives
Please remember always
Stay surprised by what’s round the bend
When we sometimes get wet
Let’s let wind do the drying
Don’t try to own these things
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Arrester Bed WA, Australia
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