Ernie
i
Ernie Hug was a back pocket
for The Pies in ‘65
but up front were his hands
With 28 centimetre spans
those hands enclosed the ball
when he clocked his marks
Ernie also handled prize bulls
drove a Rolls Royce to training
and represented Victoria
ii
I had him for years
rubber-banded with
other Scanlens mates
Avuncular Ernie clutching
a Ross Faulkner, gooby grin
like Andy Griffith
And somehow, like legends
EJ, Polly and Blue Barassi
Ernie got to be die cut,
his image poppable
by pressing on the flat card
with my tiny thumbs
iii
Post-footy, a tree pressed
on poor Ernie’s tractor
and he was dead at 34

by Bill Wootton
Bill barracks for Collingwood and collected Scanlens footy cards from 1964- He sold them to a collector for a small fortune ten years ago but still misses flicking through them occasionally.
Local Lines features poetry by locals about locals and any other matters. Please submit poems to Bill Wootton at cottlesbreedge@gmail.com

Haiku

dogwood days
two white butterflies
chase the breeze
weeping elm
a red bridge
straddles the stream
stagnant creek
after the storm
a police siren wails
cockatoos nesting
in the gums
breezes ruffle
picnickers
by the lake
a food truck roars past
an island
in the lake
she sits alone

Helen McDonald lives in the Macedon Ranges and writes poetry, memoir and short stories. She regularly reads her poems at the monthly Chamber Poets in Woodend.

Local Lines features poetry by locals about local and any other matters.
Please submit poems to Bill Wootton at cottlesbreedge@gmail.com

Days of words
Beginning with birdsong
without words at all from magpies
the word trill forms up in bed
Crows hardly sing –
their unoiled hinges creak
Cockatoos let fly with their squarks
Further words try themselves on
for size and furnish
a running commentary
The day thickens with words
and tonight for sure they will
hop into bed with me
– Bill Wootton
Bill’s days and nights are crowded with words. Here are some of them.

Local Lines features poetry by locals about local and any other matters.
Please submit poems to Bill Wootton at cottlesbreedge@gmail.com

We never got it delivered ourselves
but after school I mounted my Malvern Star
and did a Herald run.
On his lounge chair after work Dad would snap
open The Herald and run his eyes over Garth
and Mandrake the Magician.
He’d know before Mum, in the kitchen,
who’d been picked for the Tiges that week,
then let the rest of news settle on his face.
Things only happened twice a day then.
After morning, evening had its chance
to announce fresh events.
Having caught up with the news
you would put the paper down, refold it
in the wrong spots and later, take the papers out.
Now things just go on happening.
News is one perpetual herald
practically writing itself into copy.

From: Bill Wootton
Note: Bill cops all his news from his iPad & phone now – and of course, The Local!