Poem
Pam Brown
Up north
Up north
Up north
night is a nuisancewhen you’re sleeping
on the floor
thirteen hours
in the same shoes
and hours yet to come
I pack Xing,
a slim volume,
for the plane trip to the tropics
*
spotty faded photos
of personalities at tea
framed on the cafe wall
trendy bakeries called
“Bread Story”
behind me, at last
paw paw, avocado, lychee,
banana, bread board and sockettes
on the window sill in the sun
*
this morning, hazy mauve pink
washes the wooded ravines
of the indigo range
noisy birds, ibis and egret,
shit white splotches
onto the utes below
two men in singlets
removing green coconuts
wave from the top of the tree
*
kestrels prey
on toads and rats
on furrowed cane fields
Welcome to Mareeba
Gateway to Cape York,
cloud blankets the tableland
rodeo clobber,
de rigueur
on Main Street
*
returning through rainforest,
the Kuranda boys
do the cassowary dance
“zamier nuts”
that\'s what they’re called
round and brown on the musty ground
last sunset in Cairns
across the port a ridiculous rainbow
rising from the foot of the range
© 2006, Pam Brown
From: Caffeine Destiny
From: Caffeine Destiny
Poems
Poems of Pam Brown
Close
Up north
night is a nuisancewhen you’re sleeping
on the floor
thirteen hours
in the same shoes
and hours yet to come
I pack Xing,
a slim volume,
for the plane trip to the tropics
*
spotty faded photos
of personalities at tea
framed on the cafe wall
trendy bakeries called
“Bread Story”
behind me, at last
paw paw, avocado, lychee,
banana, bread board and sockettes
on the window sill in the sun
*
this morning, hazy mauve pink
washes the wooded ravines
of the indigo range
noisy birds, ibis and egret,
shit white splotches
onto the utes below
two men in singlets
removing green coconuts
wave from the top of the tree
*
kestrels prey
on toads and rats
on furrowed cane fields
Welcome to Mareeba
Gateway to Cape York,
cloud blankets the tableland
rodeo clobber,
de rigueur
on Main Street
*
returning through rainforest,
the Kuranda boys
do the cassowary dance
“zamier nuts”
that\'s what they’re called
round and brown on the musty ground
last sunset in Cairns
across the port a ridiculous rainbow
rising from the foot of the range
From: Caffeine Destiny
Up north
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