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Ah b'leve ah won't be sinking down, then, on the strength of your praise, Andrew. Cheers, Bill > On 1 Jan 2014, at 2:14 pm, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > A recognisable moment there in a fine narrative poem. (I'll play > Crossroads, the Robt Johnson version, now to kick off 2014 - then the > Clapton one. Brilliant stuff.) > > Andrew > > >> On 1 January 2014 00:20, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> First for 2014 is a reworked job. Greetings all for new year. >> >> Bill >> >> >> Crossroads >> >> i >> >> I was standing at the crossroads. Port Fairy. >> 1986. I was not alone. >> >> Two, maybe three hundred people stood at the crossroads >> that Saturday night. Milling about. >> >> Strange expression, milling. As if we were making something. >> Something more than a ragged circle, >> >> looking in. >> The corner streetlight shone through flicking insects >> >> on glistening black skin. >> Her headband was not up to the task >> >> of absorbing night sweat, righteous lather. >> Left hand brandishing a can of VB, >> >> right hand dismissing the concerns of a host >> of scraggy Commancheros, whose black bikes, >> >> evenly reversed to the kerb outside The Stump, >> one-eyed the lot of us. >> >> >> ii >> >> Younger than either the Aboriginal woman >> or any of the bikers, two policemen, >> >> both sporting blue short-sleeved shirts bearing >> crease-marks ironed in that folk festival morning, >> >> paced uneasily, making brief eye contact >> with anyone speaking >> >> but mostly gazed over heads, >> expectantly. >> >> >> iii >> >> >> It had started so simply. Sun had started >> to miss the tables dragged out to the front of the pub. >> >> From the shadow of the public bar, >> A black flash tripped or kicked an unexpected chair, >> >> sending it up on two legs, balancing, >> before toppling into the neatly parked Triumph Bonneville, >> >> which, almost graciously, folded down in the dust. >> One glance, instant decision. >> >> Off. Up and over the picket fence next door. >> Black legs pounding across paspalum. >> >> He was over the next fence before >> a single Commanchero was at the first. >> >> Punters piled out of the pub. >> Half a dozen of the least tubby bikers set off >> >> across the backyards of Port Fairy >> in search of Koori quarry. >> >> The rest assembled by their bikes, muttering, >> gesticulating, beers forgotten on tables, on grass. >> >> >> iv >> >> The shaping up at the crossroads might have begun >> when one of the Commancheros, suddenly sober, accused: >> >> ‘That’s his girlfriend. She was in the bar this arvo.’ >> Or maybe she taunted them. >> >> I don’t know. But I was there. >> With all the others. Massing. >> >> Not at High Noon. But at High Closing Time >> At 10 to 11. On a Saturday night. >> >> Distant violin and footstomp still, over at The Vic >> But folkies are not an incendiary bunch. >> >> ‘Yaargh, ya weak bastards, all o’yez,’ >> she spat, before turning and making her way >> >> through an easily parting channel of onlookers. >> Hairy Commancheros, police, folkers, me. Bitumenised. >> >> bw > > > -- > Andrew > http://hispirits.blogspot.com/ > 'Undercover of Lightness' > http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html > 'Shikibu Shuffle' > http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-shikibu.html >