5. Welcome to Canberra

You're bound for noplace but tres perdu
when you rock up with your ute to scout
the land of dip and deja vu,
the land of loop and roundabout.
When brittle bravado cracks with doubt,
you'll rue the day you dared the rue
as the roads rear up in a random route
that shifts and leaps like a kangaroo.

The the maps, the maths you thought you knew
spin widdershins and inside-out.
You could wind up in Woolloomooloo
or trapped in a repeat roundabout.
Don't call the cops with a flare or shout;
they don't know any better than you.
Don't make them finish their walkabout
knee-deep in roadkill kangaroo.

Console yourself.  You've got that view
of Ainslie, where wild orchids sprout
on a backing of Burleigh-Griffin blue.
Round wrens and wagails hop about.
Here's a blue-tongue skink with a stubby snout,
a sulphur-crested cockatoo
rainbow parrots, rainbow trout,
a flop-eared baby kangaroo.

So knock your compass straight! Stand stout
in your leather hat and your molskine shoe
and fight that hexagonal roundabout
though it kicks as hard as a kangaroo.