Train of Thought

This weekend I trained to Albury as recipient of the Poetry In Motion/Countrylink Poetry Prize.

I decided that I would stream-of-conscious record my thoughts, which lasted between Canberra and Goulburn. What lies below is that unedited document.

Train of thought

So I am typing this  entry as a stream of consciousness exercise from  Canberra to Goulburn as a part of my Countrylink Poetry Prize. I plan to load it onto the Modern Dyslexicon

First thought: I’ll fucking kill the old person and their key tones on their phone.

It took the laptop  until Queanbeyan to kick into gear in this time I had watched a hare rabbit its way through a broken fence nd a border collie shitting into the molongalo river

According to a study its natural to hate oldies I wonder if they hate each other, probably a reason behind why they die alone

I harbour a lot of old person rage as the train rolls on. One of my speakers in my headphones  are broken and it left the plastic in my ear at the inconvenient time that my brother called. I’m sharing this journey with him, but he is driving to Goulburn, while I wind my way through the molongalo gorge and leonard cohen sings in my right ear.

Please ; I’m your man

My Brother will meet me at the train station stop in Goulburn,because of the crazy rail system, the capital terriotory of Australia is not actually a part of their network, and Goulburn acts as a hub between south and western lines. This has provided me with consternation in the planning stage. Albury was never the plan. I wanted to head out west, to places I had never ventured, places like lightning ridge and bourke and the train lurches around a corner showing kangaroos fighting before running away. Only superman can stop a speeding train and live, so I think that’s a good decision.

All the exciting destinations that we tried to pick  had lengthy…. Long long long stretches of bus rides. I have to, no, I wish to capture the joy of  train travel, the cheap cups of wine a good way to increase the joy.

At Albury my bro and I plan to play it large, with a canoe of the murray and seedy bar crawl with the riverbillies

Listening to “do bad things to you”  which is the theme song to  True Blood,  which is terrible because it’s a great song and a poor show. Good vampires? Puh-lease. Lets jump on the Anne Rice, Poppy Z brite band wagon.  Vampires are a sliver of the devil manifest.

The tran picks up speed in the pine forests , towards Bungendore. I can hear too much of the old lady in front of me’s stories. The food in Canberra Hospital has improved.

The sings along the rails, sings like a chocking old lady, or a rusty frog. First Class is golden for leg room and looking left I can see the cyclone fenced JOCHQ, as some old person hacks up something bodily.  There are a large amunt of cars on the hill next to us.

My second job is love councillor to all my friends and my concentration on my own thoughts stop as I answer  a series of pent up texts.

Who builds their dream house backing onto a railway? What is this, Mexico?

I swap ears for my head phone as we pass some of canturf’s land. Sometimes they are my favourite billboards

My new phone is primitive.  Gum trees on  this plain grow like hairs from a mole, as we coast into bungedore’s the  new gunguhlin.

So my bro hops in in Goulburn,  because there is a 4 hour wait in Goulburn as we switch trains. He misses out of on two journey legs, but gets home 6 hours earlier on Sunday. I haven’t decided if I’ll try tto stay up and continue train of thoughting for as long as possible. The Friday coast traffic hates us as our three carriages hold up  everyone on the kings highway

Bungedores a quick stop. Four rusted horses” plays in my left ear as I realise Bungendore will grow into Queanbeyan and the QBN grw into Canberra as a large sterile conglomerate.

Face-fucking die,  or don’t cough so horribly

Would you capitalise on a view out here knowing that its gunna be suburbs with a woollies and bunnings and screaming kids everywhere?

Pasture here is good for suburbs, submerged power lines and a rail service.

Wind farms. Who wouldn’t want to live out here? Wind farm all of Australia

The olds behind me debate whats the difference between “wind turbines” and “wind mills” and I wish for the bovine ignorance of the grazing cattle who do not listen to the knit-pickers and plovers on their backs

Simon and Garfunkel are singing bridge over troubled waters. I heard this in the high clouds on the shoulders of kilamanjaro on a day that we had almost enough of walking.

An octogenarian keeps yelling about mobs of kangaroos as if a) they were a novelty and b) she just learned the term “mob”

A poor gymkhana and a dressage nag moulder in the thin trees of a disused paddock

Ploughed oats are greener this brown grey plain I assume I’m somewhere near Lake Bathurst

I was born in Goulburn and the rocky out juts and ute wheel ruts the hayseed and the sepia colour bleed stir something in me like a 1000 hectare driveway or the second verse of a national anthem, I know these dusty hills saddle sore horses on  rose shores I’m coming home

Pied alpacas protect flocks from foxes rabbits honey comb river bank dry bends

Black berry brambles pick their way between tussock grass serrations and generations of farmers have plowed the  hills and the hoof lines of ovines terrace the hillside earning the erosion know how

Fittingly Dam at Otter creek is my next song and it wont be long before I hit the streets of Goulburn not to blog to to dine with my bro. that me for this leg. Train of thoughting Canberra-goulburn.

Actually this is tarago the loaded dog is a great pub here, with bushrangers or policemen or lies buried beneath it Goulburn is the next stop.

Better go!