ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Was having a fiddle with my new photoshop - poor man's version - toy and got this photo to look like it does - so thought I better add some words.

JACKEROO


Are you still out riding fences on the dry and dusty plains
trying to escape reality and singing those sad refrains
as your memories ride with you – close companions day and night
and you never will escape them – so why waste time in flight?

It's a hard place where you are Jackeroo, Jackeroo
but you'll have to come back sometime Jackeroo.

You're a man of many faces, many places you have been
and your life is not dependent on folks company it seems.
You're a solitary bloke – with a slow laconic voice
but is being on your own each day really your choice of choice?


It's a hard place where you are Jackeroo, Jackeroo
but you can't stay there forever Jackeroo.

In the early morning crispness as you sit beside the fire
with a brew of tea to start the day do you have no desire
for the comforts of the homestead and the warmth of loving arms,
or has cynicism robbed you quite completely of all charm?

Jackeroo, Jackeroo it's a hard place where you are
but you can't go bush forever Jackeroo.

You are so like this country – you are taciturn and strong
and you never ever will admit perhaps you got it wrong.
Like the rain that falls so sparsely on this land when it's in drought,
so the words you use are sparing for you just won’t let them out

It's a hard place where you are Jackeroo, Jackeroo
but you're going to be lonely Jackeroo.

And perhaps you might just ponder as at night beneath the stars
you sit with Red beside you – not a soul knows where you are;
that the air you breath, the sky you see – I see and breathe them too
the only difference being that it seems I still need you.

It's a hard place where you are Jackeroo, Jackeroo
but you can't stay there forever Jackeroo.


Jackeroo, Jackeroo it's a hard place where you are
but you know the road leads homewards and the journey's not that far.
Use the Southern Cross to guide you, leave behind your dented pride
what are you waiting for cowboy? Just ride Jackeroo ride.

Maureen Clifford ©

You need a tune for that one Maureen, one of those sort of mouth organ ones. I s'pose in Australia you didn't have to join the Foreign Legion to get away, join the jackaroo trail.
I met an old bloke in Bourke ( older than me ) who, when he was just a young teenager, ran away from Sydney to escape family dramas. He never went back

Thanks Maureen.

In those lonely nights beneath the stars beside the fire, those questions often come to mind. We have dreams, and wishes, just the same as you and others. But with your mates that travel with you, you are never alone.
At times it would seem so, but only a fool would be alone on the track with travelling sheep, or cattle more so.
In hind sight I wish I had learnt to play the guitar or mouth organ just for company in those hours of quietness that we had plenty of but being left handed and thinking I was tone deaf I did not pursue it now I have learnt different and wish I had.
Your poem has rekindled many memories, and feelings that I have, which I often find very hard to portray in words the feeling of just exactly what is the truth of what it is like out there.
Peace, Loneliness, Solitude, Sadness, the Sight of Beauty, Harshness, of our Raw Vast Country and the Cruelty of Nature in Flood, Drought and Fire you feel all these things out there and yet it is home to me and hundreds of other people out there

Bill Williams The old Battler

Morning Maureen,

What great visuals, in the words and the graphic.
Tom Roberts use to use paint to create a picture like that!

Have fun with your new 'toy', it is quite magical and your 'next toy' should really be a Wacom Cintiq Screen, another magical tool.


Amazing what the mind creates with input of from the eyes.
This bush song has the power in its rhythm and the rhymes
To recall memories, in silence punctuated with great sighs;
Re-living in the reading the dusty days of long past times


If you switched the words in the first line of the chorus from:

Jackeroo, Jackeroo it's a hard place where you are

to:
It's a hard place where you are Jackeroo, Jackeroo

I think it flows better in the singing.

(Just my brain being picky with YOUR words no harm meant.)

Wordancer

Thank you Neville - it does need a tune other than the one in my head - but I have no musical talents at all - but if anyone is interested in setting it up please let me know

Thought you might like this one Bill - bit of poetic licence with the bloke being on his own His dog was there as well

Thanks Eliza - I used your suggestion - it is better. I will check out that Wacom site..thanks for your input

Cheers

Maureen

Bloody beauty, Maureen.

I've got one in my 'bookstore' which was triggered by a bloke on horse in either Birdsville or Tib. when I was last there.
Must do a search and post it.
Jim.

New toy hey ???? The mind boggles as to what you will get up to now.


Bob

I love what you have done with the picture Maureen.

Hi Maureen,
Liked your poem and what you have done with that picture.
I have been reading a book called 'The Drovers' it's all about the finding and opening up of all the famous stock routes and tells about some of the epic journey's of those early days.
It also has the odd snippet of verse from various poets such as Banjo Paterson, Will Ogilvy, Henry Lawson and Harry Breaker Morant, and there was This one small poem without the poets name that I liked. it referred to the many graves of drovers scattered along the stock routes.

And oft in the shades of the twilight,
When the soft winds are whispering low,
And the darkening shadows are falling,
Sometimes think of the stockman below

Terry

Hi Maureen...
This is a really evocative piece...atmospheric. Well chosen words and deft phrasing, the rhythm rolling along at an easy ambling gait, moseying along as the yanks would say. Deceptively simple.
Nicely done.

Cheers, Will.