Heat beats down upon the street
Birds too hot to fly,
Blistered sand you cannot stand
Drenched with sweat am I.
Cows collect in shadow deep
Panting sheep hang head,
Goshawk flies in cobalt skies
Hills of grass stand dead.

Whisp of smoke, a puff of breeze
Sirens scream in air,
Running men in squads of ten
Emerge from everywhere.
Now the rising wind takes charge
Runs with leaping flame
Into crown of eucalypts
To rage across the plain.

Too late the tenders hoses pour,
Too late the fireman’s shout
Inferno hot has run amok
And all control a rout.
Generating mighty winds
The fire charges forth
Spiralling in furnace air
To incinerate for sport.

Vanquished men exhausted stand
Watch with useless eyes,
As raging flames consume their truck,
Inside a good mate dies.
A live thing in the burnished night
It writhes and spirals high
Across the flaring treetops
Hot, red smoke fills the sky.

As sudden as it starts, it stops
A wind change in the air.
Ravaged forest stark and black
Hot ashes everywhere.
Hills of cinders smoking now
Stock in death’s repair,
Homesteads rendered charcoal like
Farmers in despair.

A silence in the ravaged hills
Birdless in the sky,
Bushfire horror, death and smoke
Enough to make you cry.

Marshalg
In support of my Australian brethren and their torched nation.
30 January 2013

My feet sweat, my shoulders burn
But I am indifferent.
Nature plays around me.

Close your eyes. The last thing you see
is a white butterfly dance past the tree-line
into oblivion blue.

Bush leaves crackle above you in branches
and below you, let loose through brittle grass.

A light wind conducts a symphony in which
Each shrub plays a part.
Each dry branch, kindling ready to explode,
Itching to snap its dangerously perfect note.

Thorns whistle sharply - reeds hiss and hum.
Every breeze is a clown, taking up instruments
And jostling melodies to play all at once.
The grass rushes to its queue, dry as a bone.
Leaves follow behind in vague harmonies.

I wait on the edge of an eventful storm.
The sky is blue.
A storm of events - something big,
Behind the horizon, behind the mirage.
A rhino.
A microlite .
Electric fences, purring.

A wan nation celebrates, then groans behind the hills.
Natures orchestra sings to no one in particular

Ginger bap,redfox, bushfire, carrot top, jinger minjer,oh! My personal favourite, daywalker!

      (c) eileen mcgreevy@ymail.com 2010

We plant roots so that a tree may grow,
A symbol of time and devotion

And if a bushfire comes,
Will our efforts be for naught?

I do not like the feeling of
examination,
of eyes burning on my back
as if you are a small match
and I am the bushfire
you wish to light...
I do not like the feeling of
obssessive observation,
I do not like privacy violation,
I do not like the feeling of claustrophobia,
I do not like claustrophobia because
it doesn't cease to exist by simply
removing ten people from one room.
I do not like claustrophobia because
sometimes your own mind is enough
to provoke a certain type
of wanderlust,
the kind where you run away
and leave everyone to rot and rust.
I do not like claustrophobia
because when I am alone,
it can never be enough alone,
it feels like the walls of my room
are breathing on my neck;
they're laughing at me,
declaring this poet insane,
it is the most crowded type of alone
until somebody, something
sedates my brain
and you call me "suggestive anxiety"
it's all in your head,
you're a game of chance
and I'm taking a guess;
you know my face but
you know nothing about my name.

Have you ever seen the way
A bushfire sets beautifully ablaze
The deepest, darkest forest trees
A melting-orange intensity
It brings about an ash of gold
Like the smothering dust of charcoal
The wildest destruction ever to see
In the eyes of a son who came from me

Look behind, a shadow follows, morning till night,
at sun down, it transforms and waits, no curtains needed,
look around at night, see that mysterious bushfire,
some happened beyond time, heaven is your imagination speaking,

I stand on a flow that never stops and put all my hopes in love,
there is nothing that doesn't change, I stand where
many others before me stood, I forget that, but events repeat,
I stand naked on a rock with prehistoric markings,

my shrink will associate it with my desire to go back,
my loved ones whisper in to my ear, "Hallucinations all,
will be alright after a deep sleep, you're tired, mind a dark forest"
why overburden oneself with memories beyond time?
Reasons are fading darkness, when looking beyond the mind,
all you now pass through is a dream, seen in sleep, one sleep to the next,
*How many galaxies are to be hopped in this intergalactic travel?

She used to be your sun by day
And your moon at night
You never ran out of light
Your happy meal at the end of a long day
She never left your side
Not even for a single day
And when the night is deep
And you're short of sight
She became your extra eye
That kept you safe like a knight

She loved you with everything
She gave you everything
And gave up everything
Including her pride and sense of being
She gave you her heart
And offered her soul
But nothing she could ever give
Was ever enough to satisfy
Your perpetually gnawing greed and empty soul

You've lost that girl
Now you have to live
With this monster you created in her
You broke her fragile heart into a million pieces
And now you must make peace
And collect those broken pieces
And forget all about the beautiful morning kisses

Now she's nothing more
Than a collection of warning signs
And all the signals
You get in a danger zone
She's all the wrong turns you've ever made
And all the U-turns you never made

You ignited a spark within her
But that wasn't enough
You added gasoline to it in open air
A bonfire without stories
That's how lonely you left her
A bonfire that turned to a bushfire
She engulfs everything in her wake in flames
And you can't even take the blame
She's gone out of control
And you can't even call a fire brigade
She's the loss to every bet you've ever made
All the coins you've ever tossed
And she's all the lines you've ever crossed
And she's going to burn you
With the fire you started within her
Such is the beauty of a Goddess

You refused to see beyond her flaws
Now you're forced to see the beauty
She created out of them
And smell the fragrance
That oozes out of her pores
With somber elegance
And a tactful nonchalance
And embrace the fact
That you're not even worth a second chance

Perhaps you'll learn to find pleasure
In the mischief that lurks
In the dark sky of her beautiful eyes
And decipher the mystery in her smirk
But until then keep on scratching the surface because her heart is cold as ice.

When you sauntered through the pub
I knew my life had changed;
No longer concerned to save the world,
I needed to pull resources to save my heart.

The light through your auburn hair
The exact colour of magnificent conflagrations;
Those intense wildfires evermore common
Due to shifting climate patterns.
And, like a bushfire threatening lives and homes,
No man was untouched -
All were scorched by your radiant beauty.

Your pearly whites'
Whiter than the bleached bones
Of countless drought-stricken livestock;
Whiter, still, than bleached reefs,
Luminous in their death-throes.

And those intense green eyes -
More glowing than a radio-active
Atoll seen from space.

And your voice, when you asked to sit,
Had the harmonic cascade of a thousand extinct species,
Each singing their death song in salute to corporate success:
It made my knees tremble and my wallet itch!

Your ******* as well proportioned
As those majestic ****-heaps of open-cut mines.

The little paunch you wear so proud,
Is more cute and inviting of attention
Than all the distended stomachs of starving African children.

As I explored further into nether regions,
I was delighted to discover
You'd taken the Brazilian to heart -
Clear-felling all but a remnant;
A tuft in tribute to a once great forest -
A forest of mystery and exotic, ****** adventure,
Now open for tourism!

Your scent more intoxicating
Than a million factory flues
Spewing out toxic pollutants
To fix our corporate wants.

When you invaded my heart
It was as devastating as the "shock and awe" tactics
Of a military Superpower unleashing its might
On a hapless oil-rich and strategically significant,
But unco-operative, dissident regime.

Your plump, glossy, cherry-red lips
More succulent than a genetically-modified tomato
Grown on a corporate farm, maximising profits.

And even though you're more vacuous
Than a bovine skull after the hydraulic rod
Has rendered the animal fit for hamburgers and processed foods,
You've still captured my heart
Like a sentimental story broadcast
On a slow news day with advertiser's approval.

Gaia can look after Herself,
I'll not defend Her - I'm on the shelf;
Captured by a product of modern media,
I'm in Love with a global Arcadia!