The Jolly Swagman Within
Maybe you have had it with
the city and its swarming peoples. Their ways and their means of getting,
lending and spending, all lay waste to your inner world and are just too much
for you. The cars are noisy and toxic, young people don’t get out of the way,
the train is always over crowded and everyone is just too busy looking out for
themselves in our me now generation.
So what do you do? You hit
the road and waltz your matilda all around Australia. No suits, no policies, no
standards or bully bosses to cramp your liberty life. As you tramp around on
your motorcycle, the scent of the eucalyptus trees and cow dung fill the air
and a calming rhythm enters your soul... Camping by an old billabong under the
shade of a Coolabah tree, you sing as you wait for your Billy to boil, you ask
yourself “Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?”
While your thoughts are
focused on your mug of hot steaming tea, a little jumbuck comes down to have a
drink at the billabong, you ask yourself: do I fit this legend? Having eaten
nothing noodles for a week, a tasty lamb roast would be just fine by me.
At this instant, the
principles of the deed being thought are worth meditating on for a second. For
a vegetarian, there would be no such doubts of this action. This jolly jumbuck
has as much right to its living joy as you have to yours. So, if you were so
thoughtful and buddistic, that jolly jumbuck would stay out of your belly, and
you would quietly starve on noodles.
But low on coin and without a
golden McDonald's arch in coowee, you think, who would miss one little baa baa?
Sheep numbers being what it is, there would sure to be millions more where this
one came from, surely dingos eat more.
Anyway, for over one hundred
years it's been good enough for the homeless to live off. Ask any Anzac what
they fought for, many diggers went into battle with a rifle on their shoulder
and Waltzing Matilda in their bellies. The right of swaggies to
carry off jolly jumbucks has been written in blood by this nation. In Australia
there is still such a thing as a free dinner.
But such joy does not last
long. While the tummy comes first and morality trails close behind, private
property and the Police soon follow: and their yelling “Whose that jolly
jumbuck you've got in your tuckerbag?”
“Bloody Hell, Whose!” they
dare ask. Whose jolly jumbuck!
There is no delight in having
food taken from your lips by a show of force, for behind your liberty musters a
body of armed men. My point is this: Never
let any bastard trick you, stand up and stand your dig, voice your concern and
don't just lie there and take it. If not for you Mr Swaggie, this business
of springing into old billabongs would be dead and drowned swaggies living this
legend can be a dime a dozen, so eat your stolen jumbuck with pride!
Mark Donnelly
My Poems, Proses and Doggerel
0) Followers of the gifted HERE
1) I the Devils advocate HERE
2) He the office worker HERE
3) Horse Ride HERE
4) Dear young man HERE
5) Eureka moments HERE
6) uC x C = Mad HERE
7) Man unworthy HERE
8) Another Idea HERE
9) Retire young HERE
10) My Last Breath HERE
11) Winds of age Weeping Willow HERE
12) Brick Walls HERE
13) Then man came HERE
14) Under the sun HERE
15) Visionary Vision HERE
16) The existence HERE
17) Reflection of Oneself HERE
18) Old man dad HERE
19) Ordinary Man HERE
20) My Clock HERE
21) Rumble Tummy HERE
22) As I am now retired HERE
23) Falls to pieces HERE
24) Bout of Gout HERE
25) Just A Swagman HERE
BACK TO MAIN SITE - HOME
1) I the Devils advocate HERE
2) He the office worker HERE
3) Horse Ride HERE
4) Dear young man HERE
5) Eureka moments HERE
6) uC x C = Mad HERE
7) Man unworthy HERE
8) Another Idea HERE
9) Retire young HERE
10) My Last Breath HERE
11) Winds of age Weeping Willow HERE
12) Brick Walls HERE
13) Then man came HERE
14) Under the sun HERE
15) Visionary Vision HERE
16) The existence HERE
17) Reflection of Oneself HERE
18) Old man dad HERE
19) Ordinary Man HERE
20) My Clock HERE
21) Rumble Tummy HERE
22) As I am now retired HERE
23) Falls to pieces HERE
24) Bout of Gout HERE
25) Just A Swagman HERE
BACK TO MAIN SITE - HOME
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