sergeant john wheel was blue/ very
blue but lost his way/ like crooks do whose glory

days are waning and find solace lifting barbells in a

gym/ with children peering on/ johnny/ you could

trust him/ he was beyond police street directory of

life/ bit psychic/ took you right into his head
where it’s hard to plan your escape/ john wheel just

pulled the pin/ some say he’s locked up in hills

kyneton way/ and that everyone’s out of his mind/

watches native birds light up the bush around him

at dusk/ their
speeding is just self preservation nothing else and that

the spent shells of gum trees means re growth/

a mate reckoned once that wheels sat on his double

bed/ shared a joint/ tried to talk him out of death

but he also wanted information/ pauli
would say nothing/ but somehow he felt touched/

wheels never painted him into the wall but could

h ave/ he’d help you if he felt there was something

wrong when you could find him/ but he wasn’t like

most cops/ writing up tickets or out of the van
pissing on with licensees at the back of hotels/ or

making love to single mums in the housing

commission flats/ we all knew what was going on/

carlton cops could never keep secrets/ there was a

senior/ always drunk/ every week tell
you how he manslaughtered someone during an

interview/ but never got charged/ once I read

wheels name on the front page of the sun/ asked

what was the breakth rough/ just said meticulously

it was intuition/ probably thought he was having a
joke/ sergeant john wheel the loner/ tracked down/

the young constable with the bro ken heart driving

north non-stop across the border to brewarrina

chasin’ this poet coral when he was supposed to be

on watch-house/ wheels brought him back for his
own good/ that one made us laugh/ I use to drink

with him a bit/ talk in general terms/ at stewarts

hotel/ across from the cop shop/ where everyone

use to mix back then/ sometimes you could spot

him in the side lounge with autopsies professional
crime/ the points of his eyes/ would tell you not to

walk in/ one day he said to me he was leaving/

said/ ‘it’s a promotion & premonition’/ he said

‘you’ve got to have more than one reason for doing

things/ more than one motive otherwise
you fail’/ chewing his cigarette end/ wired up in

stripes/ and government supplied shoes/ ended up

on one of those/ victoria police protection schemes/

doing time/ not necessarily because he had done

anything wrong/ there was a contract
out on his kids/ even the hat felt pity/ ‘one of the

few cops not frightened to over step the mark’/ he

said/ ‘but that put a stop to him’/ reminiscing with

a cronney the other night/ he said to me/ ‘you don’t

call it burning out/ you call it fuckin’ history’/ then
he told me/ with those words it was my bloody

shout/ you appreciate/ colourful language in

carlton