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18. OUTBACK HOSPITALITY
d. Broken Hill, The Accessible Outback And Silverton Pub Cliché
it's more intimate in the folds, like a native landscape painting, they call it art out here,
rough dottings in the distance, limestone quartz, hopbush, animal tracks,
grassmere and dold creek, stand small red and scrubby in the sand,
the flowering emu bush is full of angry ants,
'it was a woman that led me down the path to drink, I never wrote to thank her,'
take them home a box of chocolate blowflies,
or flying doctors planes made from beer cans,
no-one believes that crap anymore, it's all for the tourist dollar,
capitalism at its worse: postcards $2 each - special - are now 4 for $8,
the old cockatoo sitting on the owner's shoulder drinking beer and the horse in the pub cliché,
the wild corellas out the back asking the ones in the cages, why?,
beer gardens, where the cast from MAD MAX and RAZOR BACK sat,
lamingtons and arnotts bush biscuits, mining scene tea towels, souvenir spoons
and miniature clay dunnies, a bit more crap, outside the wind picks up,
the trail ride camels come in, the sun shining off the side of the telstra phone box,
the wind enters the ruins without knocking, the hill is broken down,
the outback is truly accessible, the silverton pub promotes itself to death, old lies die hard |
