It’s one of those hot days in the Alice,

I run into Neville outside the bottle-shop

He’s got a cask of coolibah.

“Hey bunjee, bunjee. Come and sit down with me.

Talk some stories.”
So we go down and join a mob

In the riverbed.

Nev knows everyone,

I get introduced—

His whitefellow bunjee,

His brother-in-law.

No barriers down here in the river,

The grog will take care of that.
We sit in the shadow of an old gum

The shimmering mirage of Alice Springs

Hums in the distance, and

The grog is warm now, like the day.

“All that Captain Cook stuff,” says Maurice,

As the MacDonnel Ranges sit and wait

For this town to blow away.
Maurice goes off to buy more grog,

Returns with a carton,

Green cans and we’re all Irish,

Pirates, all of us,

Grog faces floating

With out bloated stories

In this riverbed

Of broken glass.
The day passes,

Like it was meant to pass,

Without problems,

Except Mary and Scotty start yelling at each other.

You fucking bastard. Fuck you, she yells.

Fuck you. Fuck you, he answers.

They are throwing stuff at each other.

Too much noise.

We’re trying to drink.

They wander away in a circling dance,

Falling over, yelling.
Scotty must have got lucky with a stone,

Because Mary lurches back,

Her head bleeding

And lunges at Beth.

Calls her a fucking bitch

For fucking her man.
Scotty knows what’s good for him,

He’s done a disappearing act.

Mary trips over and falls in the sand.

“Go on. Get out of here.”

She’s crazy that one, I’m told confidentially.
Ah, the river.

The water comes down sometimes,

And all this love gets washed away.