Windyloo - A B Thomas.

This poem was found in a toilet (of all places) at The Boulder Creek Rest Area in Queensland, Australia.


Windyloo - by A B (Trombone) Thomas.

In campsites 'round Australia
the Loos - well they are mixed
There are some that need a cleaning
and some that should be fixed.

Some of them are long drops
and some don't drop at all
There are those that have rude drawings
and verses on the wall.

There are loos that have big spiders
and a fat cane toad or two
One of which you recognize
must be from another loo.

Once they charged a penny
although now they are all free
In some of them the door won't close
so everyone can see.

But up in sunny Queensland
beside a secret creek
Some just go to contemplate
and some to have a leak.

It's just behind a boulder
and beside another two
It's the best one in Australia
And they call it WINDYLOO!

The Unknown Patient - Henry Lawson.

The Unknown Patient
by
Henry Lawson

(Henry Lawson was recently an inmate of the Walker Hospital for Convalescents - "Founded by the late Thomas Walker of Yaralla in the Hope that Within Its Walls Sufferers should be Restored to Health". This is by way a song of gratitude). Published in "The Bulletin".

The moonlight breathes on Walker House and softens scrub and hill;
The native trees are strangely stirred, the pines are very still;
The nurse's lantern flits and flits, and pain and sorrow cease,
For all the patients are asleep, and all is Rest and Peace.

Not class nor creed nor race debars, and even Wealth is free -
The suffering miser shares alike the Home with Poverty;
The felon's past is never known when kindness "sends him through" -
The stone says "many sufferers, but it means "sinners", too.

Within a corner of the grounds, where patients seldom go,
Well screened by firs and shrubbery a sandstone ledge runs low,
And, pencilled by an unknown hand upon the yellow stone,
Is "God Bless Thomas Walker" - four simple words alone.

I know not who the writer was, and I may never know,
It may have been but yesterday, maybe was long ago.
'Tis near the pathway that divides the women from the men -
It may have been a tortured Christ or a suffering Magdalen.

Perhaps some shy and shrinking soul, relieved awhile from care,
Crept out of sight of "sterner stuff" to pay a tribute there.
Or maybe an Impenitent, and many such there be.
For hard men often drop a tear where none but God may see.

But good or bad, or high or low - or were he anything
(Or even traitor to his creed, and rebel to his king) -
I trust the unknown patient went with softened care and pain,
With health and honesty restored, to fight the world again.

There is a stately home of Rest where all the scene is fair,
And in the sun the ripples run along the river there;
'Twas builded in the noonday dream of one of kindly wealth,
"In the Hope that Many Sufferers Should be Restored to Health".

At The Midden - Ted Constable

At The Midden - Ted Constable

The sunlight found a throughway in the cloud bank's indigo
And dreamed a golden edge along the hill
Seeped softly, slowly downwards through atmospheric drift
Then lit to flickering rest unpon a rill...
Broke up in silent shatterings of semi-precious glass
Alternating as they swung in grand quadrille
The blacklight hung a willow tree with shades of green and white
And I could only stare and stand stock still.

Then sunset brought a violence of purple splashed with red
And shadows from the past came crowding round
A rock fall showed a stratum of midden shell packed close
In retrospect an ancient tribal ground.
Could that be woodsmoke rising from the many feasting fires?
Or dust raised by invading horse hooves' beat?
Is that the voice of rainbird predicting end of drought?
Or exodus on terrified bare feet?

The shell-like scrap I'm holding (wrong shape for ocean shell)
Is part of shell that crowned a human life
A flush of tinted crimson, reflex of sunset's glow
Hints silently its part in bygone strife
This perfect crafted axe-head, too fine to throw away
Was dropped here where its owner met his death.
This remnant of a musket! It came off second best
When transfixed trooper choked on bloodied breath.

That early strife is finished now, the forests have been felled
All easy gold long sifted from the stream
The mysteries that drove men on are common knowledge now
Cold facts refuse to yield another dream.
The hard-hooved mobs still crush the life from out the fragile earth
Where padding feet caressed a leaf-strewn floor
Soft edges of the grey-green bush give away to steel and brick
So man may leave his geometric spoor.

Poetry - Introduction.

Ink from the bottlebrush - Writings from Sutherland Shire: The Australian Bicentenary.
Edited by Laurel Dumbrell
Published by Sutherland Council (www.sutherland.nsw.gov.au)
Sutherland NSW Australia
August 1987