Routes off the Putty Road
By Berndt Sellheim
[not published yet]
1.
Early morning pale skin
you wake without
coming to
go about
post-slumber production
outside wit
a bucket. Hookin up
th caravan
to th backend
of yr hangover,
you sprain a finger
on th jockey wheel.
Red sky at morn,
it don’t bode well
before we hit the highway.
2.
Drivin north nine fingered
you’ve got yr phone
but turned off
th map—let’s see
where th black tar lead s:
due north n Putty Road
skimming out
th skirts o another
small federation tin
shack o town
driving on, into more
into less
half-forgotten federation pubs
fringed in franchise
re-gentrified monarchy
finds th trans-fat
Big Mac primary-coloured
burbs o middle
Australia: thin edge
o country hedge;
pretty house, nice mob.
3.
Out through
th ute-filled borderlands
now mining s money
n tiered truckloads
o spoil
circle th ring road
to abject earth
yellow gnats
riding miniature
from bitumen
into heart; th heat
hangs closer here, sun-baked
whole white. Don’t worry
though th drive-through
does bitchin trade
it’s just th ice epidemic,
a meeting point
o highways—
a place to chase
Sunday afternoon blues
snippin off yr lids.
4.
Round n around
Sat-day night
a dirty business
workin th rigs
arc weldin
pissed from gourd
n eyebent n crystal meth
n who n hell
can blame em?
The radio s playing
Joe Strummer, so yr
belting out
Shareef don’t like it,
vape the roach jar
vape the roach jar
Shareef don’t like it
th air a permanent dusk
o swarming particulates
on th scale o Exodus
where all fall short
o th glory o
Rinehart.
5.
Th road goes on
but we have to stop:
how we pull over lost
how we should-a gone
left at the turn-off
how we lost
th aggregate, th rubble
n that’s one less place
for yr iPhone
to worry about
n still we’re tracking
th edge v open cut
n yr saying how th local
is national, s inter-gnat
s inter-sect n incest
n that mountain o mine
is going on and on
like a set from Fury Road
almost B-grade
its sublime monstrosity
beautiful in scale, brilliant
machines de-scrub desert skin
derealising th metric valley
in stavic excavations
till there’s no place left
to unhitch
th van