Tiger Snake

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Rough Bruce and Bill, an Ocker pair,
Go camping in the desert air
Way out back o’Bourke.

Straight men they are, full hetero.
They have a short-wave radio:
There, cellphones just won’t work.

Bill needs to take a leak, goes out.
From in the tent Bruce hears him shout:
“It’s bit me on the dick!”

Bill hops and gasps: “Mate, come and take
A look — a bloody stripey snake,
I’m crook as a walkin’ stick.”

“Say, Bill, sounds like a tiger snake.”
“Mate, call the doc for Jesus’ sake!
Get on the radio!”

The flying doc says “No delay—
That’d be fatal. Right away,
Suck out the poison. Go!”

“What did the doc say?” Bill croaks out,
Gasping (he’s grown too weak to shout),
“— Mate, I’m crook, I’m ill!”

Says Bruce, “Well, me old drinkin’ mate,
I’ll have to give it to ya straight—
Yer gunna die, Bill.”

Ocker: a crude and aggressively uncultivated Australian: uncouth and proud of it. Ockerina is sometimes used for the female version.
Back o’Bourke: Way inland in the bush or desert. Bourke is a town in Western NSW, considered a last outpost of civilisation before the bush. “Beyond the black stump” means much the same.

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