Lightning signs
with a simple cross,
with the swiftness of grasslands
swindled for quarry,
for a beach of burning river sand
hatched by ophidian shadows,
a glanced lizard scudding
on the prismatic surface of water tension,
for the clean face of a wave
thickening with blackness of dolphins.
Wet money gurgles in a swamp
and the oligarch’s easement is guaranteed,
a hireling paid
to scrape and oil his armoury.
Fields of white stubble await the razor’s
grin, the ingress of blighted spirits,
a charring smoulder that reveals
dripping stalagmites of morgue,
dirt bikes yawing on the switchback
precipice past Turnaround Road,
all the young dudes on Maybe Street
Bombala,
taloned logging trucks.
John Hawke
Photos in collage from: CSIRO CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) via Wikimedia Commons