Poetry

The Long Drive

by

John Grey

On this straight dusty road,
the car kicks up red rusty clouds,
jerks my brain in and out
of crude shanty towns named for the dead,
endless verandas,
rust iron roofs, wide summer windows,
buildings, streets, faces so dry
my great longing in life
is to douse them all in water.
From Adelaide to Perth,
scenery is flattened for
the sake of distances,
rocks, spinifex, a scattering of wildlife,
even the occasional tree
like a martyr awaiting stoning,
and there's heat, virulent heat,
vast shimmy curtains of it
blocking out the air.
Kilometers leap from rotted signposts
through cracks in my windshield,
as, in the eternal afternoon,
I hum along with the tape player,
some cowboy wailing of lost love
through scenery that's long stopped wailing.