[Writingworkshop] The Kwiry

[Neale Morison]

I came back on Sunday from a choir tour to what I suppose you could call 
the outback. On the day that we left there was an extraordinary dust 
storm that turned the sky dark red. We visited a few towns in the 
Western Plains, Coonabarabran (pop 2069), Baradine (pop. 593) and 
Coonamble (pop. 4790), where the Moorambilla Music Festival took place. 
The pivotal piece in our main concert, performed with 50 or so 
choristers, 160 local children, a string quartet, soprano sax, keyboard, 
and four piece taiko drum ensemble, was The Yowie Suite. A Yowie is a 
dreamtime monster, of whom most locals can usually tell a story of 
personal confrontation. It's a smelly, black beast that chases victims 
around in the scrub at night.

The Kwiry

Moorambilla 2009

They're out here...
The ancient ones...
Kw-i-iry...
Kwi-ry......

A writhing, giant centipede,
A hundred legs, and arms galore,
And fifty gaping mouths, what's more,
That always seem to need a feed.

It dashes through the scrub at night,
Or through the blazing light of day,
At something like a hundred K,
Or faster when the schedule's tight.

And when it sees a country town,
Its mouths curve in a ghastly grin,
Ignoring signs, it charges in,
And from its shell it slithers down.

Backing singers, in tones of mounting terror:
Run, run, run, run, run ...

The smell? A fierce array of stinks,
Old wine, and Scotch, and strong perfumes,
Deodorant, small, crowded rooms,
And T-shirts briefly rinsed in sinks.

The sound? A shriek of dark despair,
And yowls and groans and oohs and aahs,
And strangled moans and doos and dahs,
And diphthongs stretched beyond repair.

More scones! it screams. The locals quake,
Their blood runs cold to hear the sound,
They slaughter livestock all around,
And slice and dice and ice and bake.

They offer up the sacrifice,
On groaning altars filled with food,
To somehow calm the Kwiry's mood;
It must be fed at any price.

There's fifty fifty steak and steak,
There's coleslaw, rice, cream, scones and jam,
There's curried chicken, minted lamb,
And tea and sixty kinds of cake.

It leaps, devouring every dish,
There's nothing that it will not eat,
Except at times it balks at meat,
Then townsfolk need to trap some fish.

For days the town rings to its howl,
Until at last there's nothing left,
The Kwiry leaves the town bereft,
Of beef and mutton, fish and fowl.

And then it crawls into its shell,
And hurtles off in frenzied haste,
A barren, devastated waste
Behind it, all that's left to tell.

So when you see a blood-red sky,
And eerie wailing fills the air,
You know the Kwiry's left its lair;
Bend down, and kiss your ass goodbye.

(Run, run, run, run run .... ... RUN!)

-- 
Neale Morison
neale at nealemorison.com
http://www.nealemorison.com
35 Frazer St, Leichhardt NSW 2040
+61 417 661 427