'Ngallagunda Used Car Yard': published in Undercover of Lightness (page 92), March 2012.
Andrew Burke is an Australian poet who has published eleven books of poetry. He has written on a daily basis - stories, plays, poems and - to feed family - advertising material and videos, annual reports and press releases. From 1990, Burke taught creative writing and allied subjects at universities, TAFE colleges and writing centres. In 2006/07, he and his wife Jeanette travelled to China where they taught at Shanxi Normal University, and, on their return, they taught indigenous children at Wanalirri Catholic School in The Kimberley area of North West Australia. He now dedicates life fulltime to writing.
Other poems from Undercover of Lightness:
Andrew Burke blogs at Hi Spirits
After the demolition derby
of time and neglect
motor bodies rust
in the long grass
I name it
The Ngallagunda Used Car Yard
the fruit of neglect
that runs down the road
and stops here
among poplar gums
Every community has one –
a dump for dead machinery
windows stowed in
bonnets up and twisted
exhaust pipes like
King Browns climbing down
Teenagers shelter inside
gunja smoke curling out
where a window once was
Wheels gone seats out
shell of
a Holden Commodore
from Bunbury
three thousand kilometres away
registration plates dangling
You can smell the rubber
on the highway as the cops chase
kids racing out of one life
into the next