police yet to find

.















Police yet to find motive for shooting murder of man in Noojee

Matt Johnston, Gareth Trickey

December 22, 2008


UPDATE 12.56am: POLICE say there is no obvious motive to the murder of a man found with several gunshot wounds on a remote road last night.

Homicide detectives believe the body found on the New Turkey Spur Track in Noojee, on the outskirts of the Baw Baw National Park, is a 45-year-old local man.

The body was found at the side of a gravel track by two men who were spot-lighting at around 11pm last night.

Police say it is unclear whether the body was dumped or shot at the scene.

The remains have been taken to the coroner to be examined. The family is yet to identify the body.

The discovery was made in remote, rugged terrain, nearly 10km from Noojee, close to a logging area, picnic areas and walking tracks.

Police were called to Noojee, about 100km east of Melbourne, where the body was spotted.

Local police called homicide squad detectives who arrived on the scene at 3.30am.

The track has been cordoned off as detectives investigate the crime scene.














.

straining the birds

.












Straining the Birds



I'm outside now. I scream to you
through flat sweep wind and wheat.

The front rolls in, days late,
eiderdowning soft across my ticking car,
the dogbarked moon, and me.

Jesus! I just drove here from Stockwell!
Dodging the fireflies (there are no fireflies);
hurling my pale whisky puff into space.

This time of night it's ninety miles to petrol.
I could be stuck here at this dance for weeks,
whipped with its mad whorl and spin;
straining all the birds out, like a tree.


Philip White












.

the maree hotel

.













The Maree Hotel

If Australia has a ship of state,
it must be the Maree Hotel.
With her green and gold VB ensign at the top mast,
and her stack all black and white for Port,
she sails silently across the empty stone ocean of old Aussie,
wearing the vast brute down speck by speck.

In her hold are hard, quiet sailors:
shoulders to the slow bar.
Four-wheel-drive tenders nudge her rubbing strakes,
discharging envoys from Oodnadatta and beyond,
messengers adrift without city.

About her, like ladies in waiting,
sit E. G. Kruse's mail Blitz,
sinking into the desert,
and the engines of a train long left without rails.

You could think the only politics are the whoosh of space
and the soft weep of power lines loosening,
bored against the blue.

Philip White













.

when it comes

.









When it comes


when it comes
will it be a mountain volcano or meteorite
so fucking big it smothers me

will it seep and weep insidiously
wringing its hands at the end of the bed
you think this is bad whatter bout me

will it be gardens spoofed with flowers
and virgin brides all white
or a beautiful savage with a knife

will it be crashing like thunder
or basic extreme violence
like riding the motorbike into a wall

see I keep going back to violence


Philip White














.

silence in the house

.














Silence In The House


My foreground vision’s gone.
The traffic, a lawyer, a Chinese girl -
Since you went these close things
Vibrate to a grainy mess,
Leaving the vision cast long at the hills:
Horizon being the ceiling at which I stare.
I’d go, if you were there.

It was your bright pentangular face I loved.
Your freckles.
“Any hole you like, Philip.”

It pissed down after you’d gone,
and then you’d gone.

You’d gone.

Your soft flutter “do you understand?”
The way you talk.
The way you dye your red hair dark.
The way the boys stand back and balk.
The way you kiss.

But it is silence in my house.

Four lots of men have been here,
with drinks.

Now they are gone,
and there is a silence in my house
that sucks my love upstairs.

Where there are shoes, but not you.


Philip White














.

the giant woman

.













The Giant Woman


Eight thousand feet high and bumping lumpy this morning:
chin nodding chestward to the beat, the
slapping whack of pelvis ’gainst cheek.
Chill Spencer Gulf air blasts sharp through my hair,
every sweet grain of it reeking of you.
I slump to sleep in the cockpit, falling agape t’ward your slit,
the arms stretched in circumhug
round the joystick to your breasts, full and milkdough soft.
Flying out, we slid smooth along the
back of your calf,
following the seam to the kneepit.
You were crouched like a panther over Adelaide:
Giant Woman, hands and knees;
and we climbed slow the thighback to your cream here at 8,700,
from where the other leg soars white and
perfect down to its knee on Noarlunga.
Over the peninsula we curve across your bumcrack,
The beacon winking “Here lad, here”
while your rose lift and the cedar and brie
and the whey funnel wrap me like cool powdered velvet,
turning silk as the sweatruns,
pulse pumpthrob and fluffdown, tonguelick, butter in the pan;
headswoon, heartsick, I gotta be your man.
We surge home over Spilsby, soft at first.
Then, finding the rock hardness
of the spine from the inside,
the wall of you, with one elbow on Whyalla,
the other on Wedge Island
and your sweet strong chin
ploughing the breeding hollows,
the troughs of baby whiting and oyster,
spewing me into the Bite through a
smile wider than Coffin Bay.

There has been no climax.
You will teach me more.


Philip White













.

wildu - aquila audax

.












Wildu – Aquila audax
for Joe McKenzie


Slow to leave the roo somebody’d hit last night,
a wedge-tailed eagle wobbles starving into the up and
lurches to stare from sixty metres off as we draw to a halt.
“There’s another one dead over there” you say.

His gizzards unrolling in the sun, talons locked open.
I pull feathers to freshen my dead brother’s hat.
The highway kills its carrion addicts,
and these wingtips are worn half way through

from years of mothy heaving ’gainst the tarmac to escape.
He’d lost his grasp of air, finally rising so slow
he got splattered with his beak full. Too easy to miss.
Now the female’s twitching to resume her feast.

Can she know? Does she feel it go?
They found the hat in a place like this.


Philip White



















.

to a widow grieving

.












To a widow, grieving


Enduring these bleak acres of the night
and yearning for sweet fire on the snow,
to shiver 'til that first thin glimpse of light
is blasphemy no honest soul should know.

Encircled by chill phantoms from the past
who have no way of coming back inside,
the lucky learn the only thing to last
is grief, who makes an eager, honest bride.

And so to you, sweet sister, in your bed,
across these fields of ice, devoid of dreams,
your tears have turned to foxprints in my head,
to give me transport on these frozen streams.

Now we've howled from one moon to another,
I tire of brother. I oughta be your lover.


Philip White

























.

LXXVI

.





















[ L X X V 1 ]

Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To newfound methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:

For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.

William Shakespeare
(ca 1595)













.

health warning

.


















HEALTH WARNING

Poetry falls from stars and bars
And blows tumbleweeds up the street.
It pushes sand dunes over the mountains
And herds fish to the farthest deep.
Poetry fills the dimmest breath with sense,
And strangles lovers in their sleep.

Philip White

















.

you came and stood by my table

.








You came and stood by my table



My my my.

Best thing I've been downwind of all year.

How many senses breach that handsbreadth of sky
that prickles taut between us in this grainy summer dry?

Dress softening by breeze against my hard trousered leg;
and just once featherweight on my cheek it brushed
the whiff of sea,
meadowbloom, jonquill.
The brookish gurgle of your laughter.

And there we were, surrounded by traffic and dust,
Lost in the clumsiest lust.

My my my.



Philip White























.

les murray

.











Les Murray



Wipe the egg off your chin and follow me
down here where we used to bash 'em
after the footy or the cattle sales.
You can come right down the end,
but it's too late cobber.
We could go as hard as we like,
but we're fucked.
We're fucked, mate.

It's like Ratsteeth's Dad.
Kills pigs at the factory all day:
exchange for fuckin‘ ’em all night.
Loves his bacon.
But he's fucked.
He's fucked, mate.
And what about poor skinny Ratsteeth?
I can remember when her name was Christine.


Philip White














.

for philip ruddock

.









For Philip Ruddock



I think I’d have to say that while none of us seek to waste time in discussions, which, while conceptually appealing, eventually prove to have no positive influence whatsoever, the average person must find it difficult to appreciate that in the matter of these issues at hand we have the responsibility to fully explore the extent to which they are indeed issues, or whether in fact with the passage of time we may eventually realise that they are more obviously matters that are concerning us at this point in time, and not issues at all. I want to make it abundantly clear that, beneficially, on their merits, these matters are definitely non-issues relative to modern day Australia, given that we have no advice to the contrary from hitherto unknown third parties which could well emerge on the ground further on down the track. We look at these as bloc issues in this country. I think the Australian people should understand that. The drought has nothing to do with it.




Philip White















.

park without stephen

.









Park Without Stephen



Part grey, today,
part duck.


Behind the trees
a helicopter hurls pulse nonsense
at this sodden heart,
which reliably pumps full
the artery that bloods the gut,
and floods the library with
bright henna for the sluts.


You were not there, I realised,
as I nuzzled with the pups,
my nostrils too late screaming "Wolf!" -
Wolf which these same tired tits doth suck.




Philip White










.

the feds don't have a clue

.








“The Feds don’t have a clue what’s going on down here. They flew down here one time, two days after the doggone, after the event was over, with TV cameras, AP reporters, every kind of goddam – excuse my French, everybody in America – but I am l pissed.

“I basically told the President that we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over here in Airforce One does not do it justice.

“I have been all around this city and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshall resources and we are outmanned in just about every respect.

“You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people. Thousands of people. Stuck in attics, man. Old ladies, when you pull off the goddam ventilator vent and you look down, and they’re standing in there with water up to their frickin’ neck.”


Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans,
WWL Radio, 1 September 2005.










.

billy graham

.









Billy Graham


it’s coming under the door
before everything out there freezes
not like slaters with all those busy feet
but more streamlined and confident
and flat and wide
like a mat of slug
expanding into the kitchen
it peels open horizontally like a zip
the top lip curling up and out with those hairy teeth
and then the flouros go on at the back of its ten foot throat
and out steps Billy Graham in an overcoat
King James Bible in his hand
Hullo he says
I’m Billy Graham
the damn thing’s phlegm all over him


Philip White















.

in my name shall they cast out devils

.
















"In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.




















.

blues for joseph

.












Blues For Joseph


I’ve been staring at the ceiling
That’s become my expertise
I’ve been staring at the ceiling
That’s become my expertise
Winter time I stare at embers
Sometimes I sweat sometimes I freeze

No-one waiting for acceptance
Nobody round here to refuse
No-one’s yearning for acceptance
Nobody round here to refuse
I don’t have no mournful longing
I’m just here waltzing with my muse

I got that old moon snookered
She’s become my confidant
I got that old moon snookered
But she’s become my confidant
She says Whitey you look rooted
Night times I do day times I don’t

The sheriff came with papers
No-one here of that name
The sheriff came with papers
Nobody here by that name
I been living out here lonesome
Nobody went nobody came

I see smoke out in the woodlands
not supposed to be a fire
A wisp of smoke out in the woodlands
not supposed to be no fire
Not expecting visitors
I came out here to retire

I see suspicious ripples
at the far end of the reach
I got suspicious ripples
Up the far end of my reach
No-one’s supposed to be here
But there’s footprints on my beach

I’ve been staring at the ceiling
That’s become my expertise
I’ve been staring at the ceiling
That’s become my expertise
Winter time I stare at embers
Sometimes I sweat sometimes I freeze


Philip White








.

fix

.

Fix



It is waking in the night

after the theatres and before the milkman,

alerted by some signal from the golden drug tapeworm

that eats your flesh and drinks your peace;

you reach for the needle and busy yourself

preparing the utopia substance in a blackened spoon

held in candle flame

by now your thumb and finger are leathery

being so often burned this way ...

it hurts much less than withdrawal

and the hand is needed for little else now anyway.

Then cordon off the arm with a belt, probe for a vein,

send the dream-transfusion out on a voyage

among your body machinery.

Hits you like sleep - sweet, illusory, fast,

with a semblance of forever.

For a while the fires die down in you

until you die down in the fires.

Once you have become a drug addict

You will never want to be anything else.


Michael Dransfield

.

wine tasting

.






Wine tasting


the dead-weight of years crushing down, down,
largely destructive,
yet has crushed from these barren lives
a wine we'll call Australian,
since no tariff has been paid.
Taste it. Not bitter
but with the dust of the outback
prominent. Slide it around the palate.
See with what rosy light
the chandelier blazes through this blood you
suckle on. Consider the delicate
bouquet of revolution
it was a good year for martyrs.
Jan Palach lit up half the silent east
with his death agonies
taste the ashes you thought were sediment
from long storage it is hard
to forget. Remember too the vintners
whose feet trod flat the grapes,
trod flat the barbed wire at Lone Pine
so the press could sing,
sing of "significant advances", a selflessness.
Taste it at V. C. Corner,
how many heroes then trod flat the fields to grow
the grapes you think you taste.

An amusing little vintage, you call it,
vampires of humanity,
from your penthouse the world is beautiful
the filth of streets is far below
the dead cannot be smelt unless the wind changes
bringing you the sound of death
of city solitudes
of labourers returning home exhausted
from factories you control. You
suck their lives away, their spirit,
an amusing little wine.
They toil that you can celebrate your profits,
play aristo with some amusing friends
drawn from the ranks of profiteers, scuttling
from Europe to get near the cash,
jetting from Texas to pick up the pennies
better men would scorn to touch.
It was a good year, you say, the auditors agree;
inside a wilderness a hermit listens/the
change he speaks of to the world
will come; dare you face it?


Michael Dransfield, Windhover, 1972













.

The Letter

.







The letter


I read your letter: then I took a knife
and went into the garden. There was much
that needed doing: everything in leaf
and flower, grossly intertwined; each branch

a mess of sappy green. I pruned the vine
until the twitching stalks lay in a pile.
I pulled the red camellia blossoms down
And ground them into fragments with my heel.

The fruit trees next; and how the ladder shook
With my good work. The limbs were hard to burn –
The buds curled up and shrivelled in the shock.

The willow’s vulgar, semaphoring green
was last. The stump shone pale above the earth,
neat as a tooth set in a hungry mouth.


Connie Bensley






.

It is the month of August

.















It is the month of August on the shores of the Black Sea. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute who in these hard times, has given her "services" on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so the rich tourist will not suspect anything. At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with optimism.


unknown author




.