nto the woods
today, disinterment, not picnics,
is the order of inquiry. The
Vegetable Kingdom remains thoroughly
documented and every species is
accounted for; some of whom are
human, or parts thereof.

3. False Idols

It was always wood, wood
along the way, and exits went from
grove to sacred grove till deeper wood
lay beyond the Roman shield and sword;
that, though, belongs to another
picture book. The lyre-bird mimics the
chainsaw and Birds of Paradise
spit chips. Along the Hume Hwy. east
of Eden, a concrete Mountain Ash
dubbed Yggdrasil boasts a
wide-screen computer enhanced vista:
an arrow-straight monorail running
from Uluru clean through the Olgas.

4. Surveyors Party

These twin obelisks which guard
the southern entrance to the Great Sandy
desert, though partnered to a sun
fiercer than anything Egypt had to
offer, preside over a millennia of flat
emptiness, and attest to the prowess,
not of indigent cultures, but the
engineering whim of the LAND BARONS
who pray that one day, these too, will
invoke an air-conditioned resort for
the rich to dwell in, amongst hydro-
mythological fountains, playing
endlessly over sacred-site motifs.

5. Got Ourselves A Convoy!

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! But theyve been
laid off. Round Oberon, the town
spirit flat as a plank; then fury knots
in pubs. The big rigs aim chrome
cowlings at Canberra, Convoy! through
the ring roads to circle Parliament House
wagon-style. Hey, you cant knock
it: logging by generations for
generations have trod them down. Count
the rings of the rigs revving. Each
logger raw-red, necks blood-throttled.
Say what, anger? You can put a ring
around that, champ. Hi Ho! Hi Ho!

6. Cultural Desert

The earth is dismembered & what
remains gives evidence; clues: history
by blocks displaced as in the Aswan
Dam & the Temple of Philae. Osiris rolls
in the winding sheet of the Nile
(O moisture of the World!) and vainly
cry the well-wishers. Richard Burton
tracked the source back to Lake
Victoria, and back again to the Royal
Geographical Society; no gushing
waters from the cleft rock, only lameness,
fever under the rays of the Sun God, Ra.

7. Down By The Station

Indecision. Doubt. A bungled
liftoff, the bumpy landing. Of course,
the forest dwellers who continuously
run at you from tangled undergrowth
onto the stubbled airstrip, dreamlike,
dont make it: LAST CANNIBAL WORLD:
lithe tribal girl hand jobs hero through
bamboo cage. Th