Poems
notes on status
Today you toddle off
elaborately inane, to where your profile
fills out like a bin-liner caught by the
wind.
– John Forbes, ‘Colonial Aubade’
ha survive in a corporate office
without actually working (just
live there, haunt the espresso
machine)
see brother, la revolution begins on every page, in
every line
in gel caps /
the deepest blues
only to find that
nothing beards us like a lack
of ritual responsibilities
a life of not being able to
pop a balloon with a stick of celery
(not the place itself but your slim scared imaginings of)
like spring racing carnival,
fashions in the field yet
another vocabulary for
status to shake around in...
deep in the bowels of
some corporate tent or other
you realise luxury is irresistible,
has its own set of ‘classique’ emotions
& one day,
with a dab of brio and your lucky haircut,
you could have your very own war
(thief!)
development
impermeable, unstirred, unmoved
these lives that go on regardless
city of satellites
another new suburb on the city fringe
mounds of sand, industrial supplies stand waiting
shopping village has the works for home and garden
“we'll need at least 15 bags of ice”
the hells these cuts of meat came through (you'd weep & refuse to eat)
driving past these oversize words that say nothing, nothing to stop us
“what lifting the ban on uranium mining would do for this state”
news item portraying protesters as terrorists / clowns / mutants
this station plays the golden oldies