We’d travelled more than a hundred miles
From the nearest outback town,
The sun was roasting the plains out there
And the heat was getting us down,
We’d left all the eucalypts behind
And there wasn’t a patch of green,
Only a scrubby saltbush there
Where the natives used to dream.

We halted just as the sun went down
And Miranda let out a sigh,
‘Have ever you seen such stars as these?’
And pointed up at the sky,
The heavens shone with a mighty glow
From the stars that glittered, proud,
Each was lighting the earth below
From the inky black of its shroud.

But underneath us the ground was hot
And the track it lay, bone dry,
There’d not been even a single drop
Of rain, since the last July,
We huddled up in the four wheel drive
As the air began to chill,
I pulled a blanket across our knees
And we slept for a little while.

Miranda had some Arunta blood
From her great-grandmother’s side,
She’d learned of some of their culture, and
She had the Arunta pride,
We woke to a distant whirring sound
And Miranda sat up straight,
And murmured, ‘That’s a Tjurunga
Trying to open heaven’s gate.’

‘The white men call it a Bull Roarer,’
She said, with a hint of fear,
‘And I’m forbidden to hear it, for
It’s not for a woman’s ear.
They’ll **** me if they should find me here
For breaking their sacred law,’
She slid down over her seat, and sat
Her head down, close to the floor.

I climbed on out of the cab, and stood
Surveying the dark surround,
The whirring seemed to be closer now,
And the pitch went up and down,
An icy chill ran along my spine
As I saw a movement there,
Something slithering over the ground
Not far from where we were.

I froze in shock, and I held my breath
When I saw a pair of eyes,
Both the colour of rubies, and
Of quite enormous size,
And then I saw the head of the snake
As it ploughed a furrow, deep,
Its body the colours of rainbows, then
Miranda took a peep.

She said, ‘It’s the Rainbow Serpent,’
As the whirring sound went on,
Covered her ears and shut her eyes
And said, ‘It’ll soon be gone.’
I climbed back into the cab and locked
The door, and lay down flat,
Trembled in fear, I’d never seen
A snake as big as that.

The dawn was gradually breaking as
I took a look outside,
And there, where the ground had been quite flat
Was a creek, ten metres wide,
And water, straight from the Queensland rains
Was pouring over the land,
Sluicing along the new creek bed
Where before, there was only sand.

I’d never believed in the Dreamtime
Or the tales that the natives tell,
But somewhere the Rainbow Serpent roams
With eyes from heaven or hell,
We turned the nose of the jeep around,
Drove back to the town once more,
I’ll never return to the desert, where
You can hear the Bull Roarer’s roar!

David Lewis Paget

Maybe it's the way the national flag flies so high
Despite the country's imperfections
Maybe it's the way we're united
Not separated, despite the difference in cultures,
Believes, traditions, languages

Maybe it's the way you see an Indian eating with chopsticks,
The way you see a Malay in a saree,
The way you see a Chinese making ketupat's for Hari Raya.

Maybe it's the unity you see,
Maybe it's the goosebumps you feel when you say Merdeka,
Maybe despite the hate you have towards history,
Deep down, you know how grateful you are to be Malaysian.

Maybe it's the way you walk into a mamak,
And say
" tauke tapau roti canai 1 milo ais 99 "
And maybe,
It lies in diversity,
Beyond everything else.

*Malaysia, tanah tumpahnya darahku.

The split ink flows along the page like branches growing on a tree,
and me,
I watch it as it goes
and wonder how it knows the many patterns it creates.
The split ink stops,
regurgitates
then off it skates again,
a thousand mosaics in the split
I wonder how they all fit in,
the nib, a memory store where ten thousand memories score
across the page.
The page I think was meant for ink, the split is lit up bit by bit and
I, in awe,
see,sit and saw it all.

I ******* NEED you like the nights
Like, torches in a fire fight
I'm just aching and rolling around
Going down,
Going down
Breaking the mirrors cause I need bad luck
And you're the baddest it gets, I'm limp, got me by the neck
Screaming, I'm the jungle, I go bump in the night
I'm a chilled merlot with you by my side
A ruby ring and the turning tide

A little bit of Emile Zola.
“They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.”

They thought he was pithed that man with the lithp but
he fooled them all.

He bathed in the midnight of madness and dried on the reason of hope,he sang with a voice forced with gladness and feasted on cakes made from soap.

A name that he knew he once carried was the same as the woman he married but he mumbled in metaphor and I wondered,
what the hell for
as he crumbled away into
the end of each day.

He’d always thought there was somebody
Who could make his life complete,
Among all the faceless people that
He passed in the city street,
But not one ever attracted him
For the faces there were blank,
Lost in their daily routine, at the Mall
And the City Bank.

A city is full of strangers with
No time to smile or greet,
They come in out of the suburbs, and
They jostle, but never meet,
Their lives are hidden from everyone
If they even have a life,
‘The girls are married to drones,’ he thought,
‘And the men to a restless wife.’

‘And mine is just as monotonous,’
He thought, as he caught the train,
Hurrying through the sliding doors,
Each morning was just the same.
He caught a glimpse of the human tide
On each station they passed by,
He caught the only Express each day
And that was the reason why.

It hurried away past Ovingham,
It slowed but it didn’t stop,
It passed the station at Orly Rue
Raced past the folk at Klop,
It slowed right down to a walking pace
As it sauntered past Beauclaire,
And as it did, his eyes had lit
On a girl that was standing there.

It must have been only seconds that
He could focus on her face,
Her eyes a dazzling blue, her stare
Was arch, but full of grace.
He turned his head as he went on by,
And could swear she stared right back,
Prompting his heart to leap so high
It was like a heart attack.

But the train went on and the girl was gone
As he mopped his fevered brow,
His head said she was the only one
But to find her, it screamed, ‘How?’
He took some days off work, and haunted
The station at Beauclaire,
If ever he was to find her, then
He’d surely find her there!

The days went by, but she didn’t show
And he thought she’d gone for good,
How would he ever find her again
In this massive neighbourhood?
He watched as his own Express went by
In a burst of springtime rain,
And there was her face at the window,
The face in the passing train.

David Lewis Paget