The Silk
Merchant’s
Son

Barney Embraces Technology

Peter Burke was runner-up in the Tom Collins Poetry Prize in 2020 for Barney Embraces Technology. This poem, the judges noted, was the only entry which rhymed.

Now it’s really very simple this, the rep had half-explained
Just use this little tablet to map out your farm’s terrain
You mark in all your fence lines and the trees and dams – not sheep
And the GPS will drive this little tractor while you sleep

Well the seats in this new tractor were so comfortable to sit in
That Barney dozed while satellites controlled its field position
Following instructions from computers and transponders
The bright red tractor rolled across his little farm, and yonder

It harvested some wheat at first, but then a small collision
An unmarked tree which seemed to somewhat alter its position
It harvested some marron from the bottom of his dam
It harvested his neighbours ewe and traumatised its lamb

It harvested his neighbour’s lawn, and all his new hydrangeas
then took off for a patch of blue, and quite surprised some strangers
Who noisily protested as it took the Leschenaultia
Then watched it roll off eastward, where the soil grew hot and saltier

When Barney woke you should have seen the look upon his face
He found a knob that said ‘return this rotten thing to base’
And home it went, but sad to say, a final catas-trophe
It harvested his good-old faithful English sheepdog, Toffee.

Well, they buried poor old Toffee, together with his favourite bone
And the bloke next door suggested he replace him, with a drone
You won’t regret it Barney, urged his techno-savvy neighbour
You needn’t feed nor pay it, it’s the perfect form of labour

So the rep came round in shiny van, pink polo shirt and sunnies
And rounded up the Dorpers with his basic drone, “For Dummies”
You can’t go wrong, he reassured, I’ll leave it here for practice
But Barney found it could go wrong, in fact it could go cactus

A flashing light, a whirring noise, he watched the object fly away
Up and up and up it shot, then left, towards the highway
His flock of sheep observed it, half amused and half bewildered
As it swooped upon the neighbour’s wife and bloody nearly killed her

Barney called the drone to stay. He whistled its attention
But on it flew and disappeared, the Cunderdin direction
His mobile rang – the sales rep, his voice now dark and cranky
That thing was worth three thousand bucks! he cried into his hanky

I’m looking at my screen right now, the salesman told him, sobbing
It’s mustering some emus in a field near Koolyanobbing!
He said some more, some sharpish words, but all was lost on Barney
Who saw with perfect clarity, technology was barmy

Technology be damned, old Barney shouted down the line
Computers can’t be trusted and your drone’s a waste of time
You can take your damn transponder and insert it in a log
I’m walking into town to go and buy meself a dog

The State That Jack Built

Here is the state that Jack built

Here is the dust
The dirty red dust
That covered the state that Jack built

Here is the gold
That hid ’neath the dust
And paid for the state that Jack built

Here is a pipe
Preposterous plan
The Premier’s gamble
That killed a great man
But unparched the throats
And moistened the dust
’neath which lay the gold
for his strategies bold
For the million square miles
That Jack built

And here is the headstone
down at Esperance Bay
Inscribed with those words
That Jack wanted to say
to his friend, Tommy Windich
Who back in the day
Had steered the young Forrests
Cross bush, salt and clay
From the Swan to the Avon
the Yilgarn, and onwards
To the east, and then easter
To the back of beyondwards
To a world full of null
A bad place to fall
No pasture, no water
Then no trees at all
And if not for Tommy
They’d be done, like that German
whose bones were picked dry
By the crows and the vermin
And blew with the dust
Which covered the state
Which Tommy, and Alex
and Jack built.

And now here comes an expert
To tell us to choose
Twixt Tommy and Jack
And each way we lose
Where something is joined
He suggests we should bust it
We must deconstruct
Everything they constructed
Haul down those statues
Deny or amend
Jack’s sadness at losing
companion and friend
He advises we dwell on
the things that divide us
redact or ignore
all of that which unites us

But as the old bushies know, and have known it forever
survival depends on our staying together
Should ever our differences pull us apart
We are doomed to the fate of old Ludwig Leichardt !

For we are all Tommy
And we are all Jack
We are the state
That they built

Corellas in a Toodyay Park

‘Twas brillig (which in poet words
means getting close to dark)
A cacophony of parrot noise
Rains down on a Toodyay Park
Shielding eyes from gumnuts
Mike looks up, and then looks right
‘Jeez, I wish I had my shotty mate,
I’d put this lot to flight.’

‘You can’t shoot cockies’ says his mate
‘Thank God, or I’d shoot you!’
(Meaning, in vernacular,
that they were cockies too)
And then, on cue, amazing shot
But never would I lie
Mike looks up and a cocky drops one
right into his eye

Oh, flippin flaming blazin bum
Spat Michael in his rage
While back and forth asquawkin’
Like a cocky in its cage
He stomped across that Anzac Park
Towards the Vee-Dub, fumin’
With raucous laughter all about
Both ornithine and human

Then up they shot, not all at once
A hundred cockatoos
Noisily, erratically
In groups of fives…or twos
Have you seen Italian starlings
with their graceful swarming sweeps?
It was not like that; these birds
would make a flight instructor weep

Now Cacatua pastinator filled the moonlit sky
A hundred Aussie hoodlums
Letting loose their battle cry
Above a Vee-Dub Amarok
With not a scratch upon’t
A couple of wags relieved themselves
And – bingo! – on the bonnet

You see, corellas talk. They’re garrulous.
And well they still remember
Back when cockies shot them from the sky
From June through to December
‘A cocky shot your grandad, son,’
says the educating pa
‘So if you hear one talk about his gun
Well…drop one on his car.’

Fighting Words

Pending release 2024

To celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of Irish larrikin poet Brendan Behan, had he not died at age 41, a drama with music recalling a lively Canadian panel show he took part in back in 1962. Whiskey, cigarettes, Nigerian drums, and The Auld Triangle going jingle bloody jangle. They don’t make TV like that any more.