Guide to Sydney Crime by Les Wicks - HTML preview

Kit Kelen

GANGHA

O for a joint o’th’ambrosial herb,

the greenest grass that hath been

dried a long age on the sun drench’d fields

near Lismore. Or if Gosford green

delight thee more, smoke then,

thou happier than I, thou happy

happy hippy. Drain thy gladbag

to the lees.

Long hath winter's drought been with us

and long hath been the time sith I have seen

a bag full of Queensland head,

a Thai stick, opiate orient herb.

Fair seed time had my plants

but winter's frosts, the neighbour’s greed,

the policeman's wrong – the seizure of the law

hath blighted the foliage of the ripening seed.

There was a time and I could smoke

pipe or hookah or bong full o’the luxuriant weed.

There was a blessing in the gentle breeze

that blew ambrosia's smoke my way.

The room we sat in like a burnish’d bong

the walls all caked in resin

and so perfum’d.

. . . How oft would we

to the kitchen or corner shop

with parchèd mouths and greedy eyes

for lucent syrops tinct with cinnamon,

manna and dates, chocolate o’the god o’war

or spicèd dainties from cedared Lebanon.

Ah halcyon days

and I would you were not fled

– that it should come to this.

Now the only roaches that I see

are on the kitchen floor.

Ah me

my skin grows pale

in winter's leafless gaol

and what I would

for a mattress full of Mullumbimby mild.