Kalgoorlie Poem

(This one was written in about half-an-hour and then performed over the phone during a radio interview on ABC Goldfields - October 15, 2008 on the Morning Show with David Kennedy. They loved it! It's on their blog)

Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie
say it

a superpit* condition, a red yellow bowl of silky pear
a moon-sized, mass-mind hole in the ground, a nugget
going down town in the ripplin sun, my face an empty sky-mine
this easterly dust remembering all who trod this street
my economic reality, a hi-lux with the hubs in

Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie
say it

this is the place this is the town
heat the back o my head with the hay street nouns
waking up to the sound of a goldrush city
we follow the pipeline the pipeline the pipeline*
hey paddy* give us a drink o this
vanish to the vast, vastness this
wangai* country this

Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie
say it

Kal…

----
allan boyd - antipoet
October 15, 2008

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Some references:

Wangai: is the name given by themselves to the 26 Aboriginal groups of the Goldfields of Western Australia. It comes from the word meaning "Speaker".

Paddy Hannan: was a gold prospector whose discovery on June 17 1893 near Kal set off a gold rush in the area.

Superpit: This renowned Kalgoorlie-Boulder landmark is currently 3.5 km long, 1.5 km wide and 360 m deep, and will eventually stretch 3.9 km long, 1.6 km wide and reach a depth exceeding 500 m.

Golden Pipeline: is perhaps the world's longest water main - stretching from Perth to Kal, some 580Ks.