Omar Musa: Here Come the Dogs

You splash petrol on the ground from a jerry can

and lead it in a thin trail back up the track.

Methodically you dry your hands, every crease in the knuckles

where the petrol could hide, in between the fingers.

You take a ciggie out of your pocket and light it,

hesitant, scared the flame will catch on some hidden fuel.

You smoke and you are very calm.

You are a king who is about to set in motion

a choreography of dancers and jesters.

You toss the ciggie on a patch of leaves that shimmer with fuel.

They take the ember

and spit some flames into the air.

You dance back,

the flames spread their fingers through the grass.

A shudder goes through you and you look around.

You are completely alone.

You climb for twenty minutes

until you reach the ridge that overlooks the gorge.

You turn around and can see

the Town on the other side of the hill.

On the ridge,

you look down at the fire,

amazed that it has grown so fast.

The heat reaches you,

even this high up.

Sweat on your forehead,

your fringe damp.

You unzip and pull down your jeans.

Your cock is harder than it’s ever been.

You reach down and begin to stroke it,

smudging it with fuel and grit.

You can feel the heat of the fire –

the heat, the summer, the smoke and, at last, the power.

Soon you are masturbating ferociously,

sweat drops running down your back, arse and legs.

You stare at your creation below

and when you come,

a scribble of semen spurts

onto the shale at your feet

and sizzles.

Are you awake or asleep?

Are you laughing or crying?

The bushfire,

that frenzied heart,

bursts.

Alleycat flames dance,

backs arching and teeth

grinning, snarling, unravelling,

gibbering waves that leap and cascade onto fresh tinder,

swallowing gumnuts, dry twigs, timber rich with oil,

grass, sacrificing shrubbery to their holy wrath.

The wind lifts a single burning leaf

and it alone

holds the furious sorcery

waiting to inscribe itself on the world.

Trees explode.

Like.

That.

Animals next,

galloping and loping, barging and shouldering,

that shiver, somehow, then shrivel,

whirling, backflipping in anguish,

screaming weeping pirouetting shuddering and finally falling.

The bushfire is an ignorant brute,

racing up hills

with determined and muscular movement.

Koalas are immolated in trees/

spraycans explode/

Horses scream against fences,

teeth lathered and skin bubbling/

a cow’s milk curdles in its udder.

A woman poached in her swimming pool.

Now a dog screams from the scrub, his fire fiercer.

It is coming indeed.

Your heart leaps,

because at first you think it is Mercury Fire.

But it’s not.

It’s a feral dog aflame –

a satellite of monstrosity.

You see it all now.

In the flames there are scriptures and mazes,

a labyrinth of tinted moving mirrors.

There is a whole population

treading down the corridors of flames,

thousands of people,

men, women, children,

the pretty ones, the ugly ones, the young, the lost,

the Damien Crawford’s who never die,

those who submit, those who endure,

those who burn within or drown without, arms linked, in lines,

moving forward, a legion facing the greatest horror of all,

their eyes reflective, their skin spangling with blisters then charring,

but they walk on, their skin peels, muscle falls from their bones

and they are a great phalanx

of reeking,

clattering skeletons.

And each skeleton now raises an awful finger

and points to the sky

to where the other planets are,

who have disowned Earth for its beauty and follies.

You see it all,

Jimmy Amosa,

our origins and ends,

our ruin, our rejuvenation.

A monstrous, deranged chaos prevails.

A cardiogram of the nation is written into the rumbling flames. From the Eyre Peninsula to Gippsland to the Blue Mountains, horizons shimmer and bend. The needle on the fire-danger sign points to catastrophic and code red. Life and Death are both staunch in their will to survive. The large and small clash against one another — wind, land, water, fire and man embroiled in a tussle with no resolution except that it must happen again. Sobbing and screaming. Sirens. Black clouds cauliflower. Rubber is scribbled on asphalt as trucks swerve through the firewall. Animals seek refuge on highways, mammals and reptiles next to each other, stunned by fear, arranged as if by design on tar so hot a man’s foot can sink in it. Power generators break down and dams are filled with a turbid mixture of ash and silt. In two days, a fire truck is burned to its spine, ten people lose their lives and hundreds of houses are destroyed. Rumours of looting. Abandoned cars showed their ribs to the sky.

After the fire has moved on, people pick through the carnage of their houses like rag and bone men, with tears streaking clear lines down their masks of soot. A woman clutches a photo album to her chest while her husband sifts through bricks and broken pottery and misshapen blobs that were once glass bottles. He stoops, picks up a diamond ring and holds it to the red sun.

Sympathy and charity flow and a school hall is turned into a makeshift camp for the displaced. People who have never met sleep side by side on donated mattresses and many ask why it took a catastrophe of this magnitude to finally bring forth compassion in Australians.

The simmering whispers now.

How did it start? Lightning in the mountains? A firefighter, a glory seeker, a wannabe hero (and indeed an off-duty fireman did arrive at the blaze a little too quickly)? Some say it was live ordnance practice at the army facility that kicked it off. Some say it was the emergency services department’s fault for being tardy and underprepared. The emergency services department points out that a pine forest too close to the suburbs had been allowed to grow uncontrolled for too long. Was it further proof of global warming? The prime minister replies that global warming is a fallacy and that bushfires had been a part of Australian life for as long as anyone can remember. He poses next to the firefighters for pictures before his PA ushers him back into the chauffer-driven car.

An old woman, sitting on her verandah, notes to her daughter that the Ancients had long used fire to shape the land, to create abundance, to allow flora to flourish that needed fire to release its seeds, to control the wilderness and to prevent bushfires through back-burning.

And indeed, soon, the rejuvenation will begin. Little bluebells will appear from cracks in the earth, tiny stark eyes that observe the world as it remakes itself. The immense gallery of black trees will grow new leaves and stand on grass as level and green as felt on a pool table.

But for now, the fire, with its millions of beating hearts, understands, and will understand, all.

I’m there early,

watching the support act

with Scarlett.

He is obviously nervous

and keeps yelling,

‘Putcha fucken hands UP!’

The room has five people in it.

Scarlett orders two gin and tonics.

The barman hands her change

over with a smile.

It’s a five-dollar note.

Queen Elizabeth wears a crown of thorns

and there’s a timebomb on her shoulder.

Scarlett crushes it into her pocket.

. And here come the lads

Charged up and gnashing their pearlies,

kebab-fed thoroughbreds and mongrels