PIGGY
i spoke with a pig killer at cape tribulation/
he talked about his hunting skills & the sly
intelligence of wild pigs that lived in the
daintree/ & how they caused destruction to
the environment/ so that i thought of the
wild pigs like i thought of the feral cats/ all
tearing down the rainforest with claws &
tusks/ the hunter's bestiary of introduced
pests diverting my attention from the tourist
industry/ he called himself piggy/ a self-made
conservationist/ a hater of introduced species/
unless they were in a hamburger/ then to hell
with the environment/ he talked a long time
about pigs/ their intelligence & their evilness/
they are evil he squealed/ until i knew he was
a killer of pigs/ & that he would be happy to
die by the pig/ but all the pigs tried to do was
get away/ he knew that pigs ate the cassowary
eggs/ but he did not tell me/ that if the cattle
farmers on the rainshadow side of the dain-
tree/ hadn't cleared the land & killed all the
dingoes/ then the pig numbers would be kept
down/ instead two hundred years of colonial
piggies shooting poisoning & trapping pigs
to death/ their numbers increasing to fill the
gaps/ i thought of new power lines stretching
into the daintree/ & of the terrible short term
tourist industry & the sleazy tour guide who
drove us around the bend/ who drove us all
into a wilderness of pick-up joints swimming
pools & restaurants/ turning up the music &
saying: groove on down to the daintree/ & a
few hot & bored english tourists on a night
walk saying: where's ther fookin crockidial
then aye?/ there's no fookin crockidials around
here/ & the greedy guide's son who owned the
property catching the same fat bush rat night
after night/ in a cage held up to show the
tourists how bloated with sugar & bread it
was/ then a couple of drunks hospitalised
after wandering into the stinging nettle/ ten
thousand shards of glass with poisonous tips
wedged beneath their skin/ as if the forest
had become irritated & had called them over/
the wait-a-whiles catching their fluoro t-shirts
as they were taken away/ & back to cairns
from the filthy daintree night-spots/ the canopy
trying to block out the sounds of rock'n'roll &
vomit/ then piggy with his five vicious cattle
dogs on a mission to clean the place up/ to get
rid of the evil pigs/ his big cattle dog an inch
from my face in one of the cabins/ i was sitting
on the floor when i felt a shadow behind me/
nasty red whiskers quivered by my ear & when
i half turned it was piggy standing in the open
doorway/ the cattle dog growled deeply in its
gut & i thought it was going to take half my
face off/ piggy said: he doesn't like you/ i said:
get your fucking dog away from my face/ but i
was trembling/ imagine five dogs tearing down
a pig on a tropical rainforest track/ & how the
pig's screams are embedded in the buttress
roots & the rocks/ dogs to the throat & face
are something she can't throw off/ small beady
eyes & one dog to the hind leg to make sure
all ground was covered/ & one right on the
soft gut/ the vulnerable gut full of its own
purple & crimson weight/ & dead litter from
rainforest floor stored inside/ as slow snakes
moved up the bark like the forest retreating/
for a full thirty seconds the poor pig screamed
out on the sixty minutes program/ whilst the
reporter insisted on feral pig scapegoats/ as
piggy the interviewed jumped on the pig
with all the dogs ripping/ & jerked back its
head by the tuft of hair on its forehead &
pulled out a big knife/ as the reporter might
pull out a microphone/ & slit open its throat/
so that the current affairs camera could film
blood running down the rainforest stream |