I
The mental hospital
Sat on the white hill
Humming quietly
Generating something
Magnetising the upset
Balance of metal in the brain
II
The derelict supermarket
Where the baker boys lived
Well for weeks then got ill
Too many red raw steaks
No murmur from them till
Teacher heard the flies’ drone
III
The man-made trench
Where Dallawell hid out
And threw fist-stones
At babies in prams,
His po-faced mother
Pierced his downy ear
With her needlesharp nail
As she dragged him home
Woke the world with his whine
IV
The Chase Hill dog
That blew down fences
Shook the ground in its bound
And gave many a child
Its stamp of foam love
The unknown owner laughing
The whole time through
V
The outback fields where Stratton
Salted his neighbour’s fields
We went down there
And stared unbelieving
Stars like poisoned birds
Crystallised on the burnt earth
Stratton raindancing with rage
VI
The graveyard tumuli that burst
And left the caved skulls
On the moss, Sunday School
Spent remaking the remains
The panting dogs sat at the wall
VII
The blue lagoon filled with trollies
And ancient mining machinery
That snatches at swimming feet
Clutches and sometimes azure
Tragedy ensues, blue days sure
VIII
Shut down 10 years ago, collapsed, buried, kaput
And now the song of the city fills my ears,
But when cloaked with heavy pillow,
The room seems to quake with that old noise
