Salt and Pepper Short Stories and Poems

by Susan Sowerby

The night was dark and stormy-wild, my students had gone home

  I had the spooky feeling that I was not alone

  I looked towards the portrait heads all lined up in a row

  My sculpture students have such fun in my bush studio

  A clap of thunder took the light, my heart-beat froze in fear

  The hair stood up upon my head, I knew someone was near

  I struck a match in need of all the courage I could rally

  Then an eerie light lit up the portrait of Ned Kelly.

  The atmosphere around it grew, I noted with a start

  I heard his voice inside my head, it nearly stopped my heart

  ‘Write a ballad for a man the public never heard

  I’ll tell the people how it felt with every flamin’ word.’

  I gasped, ‘I’m just a nobody, I can’t write well for you.’

  He snapped, ‘We’re all a nobody, and yet somebody too!’

  His presence was so very strong, I could say overbearing

  It made me doubt I had a choice about what we were sharing

  I begged, ‘Allow me freedom, if you want me to connect’

  ‘Freedom. Yes!’ He took a bow, ‘now that I do respect.’

  His attitude seemed quite polite - for a wild bush ranger

  Though dark and wilful, angry too, I felt I liked the stranger

  I said to him, ‘My late great aunt used to dance with you

  She told us tales about the pranks Kelly’s gang got up to’

  There’s one about the policeman’s ball, hidden from archives

  You locked the cops in their own cells, and then waltzed with their wives.

  His smile was grim, ‘We lively lads, were only out for fun

  The silly gendarmes took offence, and kept us on the run

  In time the problem escalated, turned out for the worst

  But anything we did to them, I say they did it first.

  What they really wanted was to take my family’s lands

  Won by honest sweat and work, with bare and calloused hands

  They told the town I was a thief, and passed around the rumour

  When little men abuse their power, I lose my sense of humour

  But those up high saw fit to cry, ‘selectors are invalid

  It wasn’t bought, your work means naught, because we want to sell it’

  To see gross greed and unjust gain, masquerade as justice

  Us Kellys took the brunt of it, it really did disgust us.’

  Well, the coppers had their day, Ward, Steele and Goebles

  Flouncing with the ‘upper crust’- folks they saw as ‘nobles’

  I’ve no respect for little men who carry out the plan

  For the vultures on the top - we had to make a stand!’

  I saw that Ned was quite a man, handsome, vain and proud

  Who would defend right to the end, all the Kelly crowd

  I had the thought to ask of him, what it was he wanted

  He turned on me the haunted look of a creature hunted

  ‘To work my family’s fields in peace, a pretty bride beside me

  The same as any other man, but all that was denied me

  Day and night they’d not let up, they harried and they hounded

  They came in greater numbers till they had us boys surrounded

  I didn’t fire first amid the turmoil angst and strife

  Before I knew it I was trapped and fighting for my life

  I vowed that if they wanted war, then a war I’d give

  ‘Come and get me, do your worst, but let my family live.’

  And while they spewed such hogwash as ‘Australia fair and free’

  I swore that I would make them pay for what they did to me

  Oh, God, I want to curse those men, curse them all to hell

  To break their bones and flay their hides and purge their rotten smell

  His outrage grew to fill my shed, and though it terrified

  At last I saw the reason why he felt so justified

  My wish was then to give him voice, his message to relay

  I asked him what he’d like to say to Aussie folk today

  ‘They praise me as a legend and my memory they anoint

  They make of me a hero, yet they damn well miss the point!

  Wake up my strong and hearty lads, get up and seize the reins

  Let the greedy rule you, and you’ll all end up in chains

  Many doleful hours spent, a-sitting in the clink

  Awaiting execution gives a man much time to think

  When you hear a free bird calling just outside your cell

  Freedom will mean more to you, I learned that lesson well

  And while I beat on midnight’s door with deep despair around me

  The legal bandits went Scott free, a fact that still astounds me

  My kindly chaplain always preached ‘these souls you must forgive’

  I couldn’t do it - I was young and just wanted to live.’

  Kelly bowed, he’d said his bit, I offered a salute

  To this man of spirit, fame and disrepute

  An angry gust and he was gone as wind roared through the valley

  I won’t forget that stormy night, the night I met Ned Kelly.