Andrew Galan



Target Practice Ducks

Passing through target practice ducks
their bulbous yellow bodies dwarfing dead trees and cars
the horse lyrist climbs a rise, the hot smell draws him
with knowledge of nurses he pretends himself a medic
but keeps below the ridge
where cattle heads lie fresh on stone, not a first responder,
after black metal rain from the Iron Sun
he disappeared the ute
parked it in rugged bushland, covered it in kindling brush.
He has green papers for the courts and character.
His steel friend trudging behind, all legs, giant boots and fat head
now drags a two-man golden kayak through the sand
a blanket wrapped aluminium echidna huddles in one seat
its blue eyes glow and watch
this vehicle-wrecking junk-road has knee-high socks
a burning building, the sky is bright with tracer
this brumby believes his thought here is something new, a charcoal hand fixed imploring
breasts filling cotton pleats, opacity freezing tableau figures
of bomb throwers stretching right-arms back
to lunge low toward an invisible target
as launch thrusters spin the flight of fixed carousel animals and painted amazon birds
their bright fur and plumage fuel to red firing drives
where the Pumpkin Queen stares, fingers a rigid temple ave
hearty blowflies swarming as her attendants
a smell of smoking meat

for the Iron Sun the colt drinks whiskey
on Sunday or with the last Friday devotions
he tells himself, ‘no regrets,’ pushes on
the target practice ducks hit to ruin
remain in a fading horizon haze.



Iron Sun

Amid the grime of a police car front-ended into curb
a constable’s body stretches heavy against its dirty right rear tire
an obsidian butterfly stops on the rusted crash barrier
and a distant red flashing roadblock strings the hazy highway;
here the Iron Sun harvests answers

On a firebreak beside two mammoth metal-frame transmission towers
an obsidian butterfly flaps between fragile desiccated buds
the boy with his hamburger head robot drags through ash
their lemon kayak carrying the last aluminium echidna;
here the Iron Sun collects numerals

In the deep shadow of four sky-scraping yellow metal ducks
their fat stainless steel rollers bogged in soot dunes
one body part of each epic fowl uniquely and completely shot through
an obsidian butterfly’s wings catch a chance of light;
here the Iron Sun gathers alphabets

Against a blue field, framed by torn, creased and char-brittle paper
the Iron Sun sorts, reads, categorises, assembles and calculates.





Andrew Galan is an internationally published poet and co-producer of renowned poetry event BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!. Described by reviewers as ‘riddled with satire’, his poetry is gut, direct, and imagination and reality meeting to eat and fight. Showcased at events including the Woodford, National Folk and Queensland Poetry festivals, and Chicago’s Uptown Poetry Slam, his verse appears in journals such as the Best Australian Poems, Nuovi Argomenti and Cordite. That Place of Infested Roads (Life During Wartime) - KF&S Press, 2013 - is his first book. His latest is For All The Veronicas (The Dog Who Staid) - Bareknuckle Books, 2016.

www.andrewgalan.com/                               BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!
 
 
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