To be dragged from the bush
choking and wheezing cloudy
like a first pulled lager
eyes washed but never enough
to cool the gum's ash
and the grim curling peal it came from.
To see a black-faced clown where sun

light was torn from storage.
All those ages a'groanin in
forests scythed to six-foot hollow sticks
white ant eaten didgeridoos.

A rustic gapes at the lunatic
moment of sparks and flashes
and euphemistic sirens and
bladder-like trucks that rise from the sea.
Wet spits and crackles like fat. To
stand bleeding, muscular toned, sweated,

boiled up, nose ingurgitated with burnt wood,
spluttering after air like a lung less fish
because beasts fell twisted because
bodies flowed into smoke into airs and all
that seemed safe is now but story.