ham raffle on a Saturday night:
rugby-stubbied lads in the roar
shedding horns and velvet childhoods
stand lowing ‘round the pool table
the air is thick with tobacco
and the clack clack of the jukebox
peddling choices like a careers counsellor
outside, the moon is a cracked windshield
and winter whines at the door
soon, the young men fledge
to the cities, other dank-valleyed towns
or high, star-ridden stations
and the cold pub air sits disused
smelling of rancid fat and urinal cake.
it gets so you can’t get a meal half the year
just a piss-weak draught
but still the slow old boys come in,
chewing through the days like a combine harvester
to lean back on scratchy square chairs
and affix you with their opinion:
the horses the rugby the rest of your life
until the final grind of rural siren
draws the street out to bear witness:
billow of smoke, structure buckle,
the wild-eyed windows filling orange
as the blaze roars low and final
the neighbourhood stands
with their hems dampening in the dew
and slowly the chat seeps into the night:
births deaths marriages,
the lamb prices, the drought
and like hoggets in a southerly
they turn as one
to warm their burry backs
