The Nuts of the Red Gum Tree

Brawling with ra's and hiccups that sounded like suppressed laughs in a tummy full of struggles and deficits of a gut that couldn't quite digest what was really out there; and watching a fire from a hole in the pocket, a conversation embered out from the bar…

Someone missed a crucial point. Someone else picked it up.

 One lady buffered the fire and it hissed after her. A tall man in a trench-coat said ‘What is this wood? What is it called?’ and buggered off.

One woman laughed between sips from her stout

like a wicked witch disguised as a young nude for a portrait.

 Young men scattered their joys like squirt.

 One man tried to hide his boredom, then gave up, and that made him happy, for the ra's and the hiccups that came out like suppressed laughs from a tummy full of struggles and deficits of a gut that could not really digest what was really, really, out there.

Obliging men in very well tailored suits without any gumption whatsoever twitched like mice and made cool fools.

They also pissed themselves, laughing.

 And one answered the question, ventured ‘Red gum’ to everybody in general and nobody in particular.

The bricks warmed up. The lights dipped into the beer and the wine.

The cackles tried to make sense of it all, while the lady of the house bosomed bread and butter, with exotic dips from distant lands on a wooden tray, like a liar who cannot keep promises made.

She got wind of the raucous situation and an ousting, a cleaning job and further licenses awaited the dawn of the new day.                                                                                                    

More glasses returned coyly to the exact circumference of beer sweat that they had left on the planks that made the solid tables

And even less was heard from the lives of the corks that fitted the mouths of bottles of Champagne.

The wood surrendered a further piece of itself to the fire.


Art: http://petescully.com