CARGO

The synthe-parfum-inked catalogue is chastening:

So much to buy for so little money,

And you have none.

How must you reek of failure

How must you pong of angst

When workers in Mumbai and Shanghai

Infuse every plasma screen

With the blood of their very Faust,

While all you may hope for

Is a kiss, a caress,

And ergo may sigh authentically

As you file the catalogue

In the state-sanctioned bin,

Knowing love is a ship

That never comes in.

FREIGHT MOVEMENT

Not long past dawn 

I sit in the lavatory

At the far end of the platform,

Aspiring to perform

Before my train arrives.

This precious duty demands

Contemplative stillness,

And is thus unsuited

To the convenience

Aboard a car in motion.

A sudden freight train

Belts through the station,

A long linked sausage

Of heterogeneous containers,

Mere metres from where I perch,

Shaking the earth 

To its bowels.

Then it is gone,

The silence resumes,

But the moment has passed:

In the old gum tree

A kookaburra cackles

From afar:

Close

But no cigar.

ABC ANNOUNCES GRITTY NEW DRAMA SERIES: "BABES", SET IN HARDCORE INNERCITY CHILDCARE CENTRE

1. INT. CHILDCARE CENTRE. DAY.

KYLIE, 16, work experience childcare centre worker, runs in from bathroom. She is in a short black cocktail dress, high heels, and showing plenty of cleavage.

KYLIE

Mavis, Jezebel has done a poo!

MAVIS, 73, in a short black cocktail dress, high heels, and showing plenty of cleavage, slaps her.

MAVIS

Wash yo mouth out, ho!

KYLIE weeps hysterically.

KYLIE

But I didn't mean to slap her!

MAVIS punches KYLIE in the stomach.

MAVIS

WHADYOFUCKENMEAN DIDN’TMEAN!

KYLIE

I....

MAVIS

YOU RACIST, AGEIST, HYSTERICAL BITCH!

KYLIE

But....

MAVIS king-hits KYLIE, who collapses unconscious on the floor, her hem riding up to reveal a hint of her sexy knickers.

KYLIE

(Huskily) Ooooh....

JEZEBEL, 2, emerges from the bathroom, crying.

JEZEBEL

Poo-poo, poo-poo!

MAVIS sighs world-wearily to her.

MAVIS

Yeah, like, who fucken cares?

JEZEBEL

Random. Totally.

MAVIS

(Sighs again) I'll get Kylie in to clean it up.

Shot through the open bathroom door of a large anarchist A and "DOWN WITH FASCISM" smeared in baby poo on the wall.

JEZEBEL

Eat shit, bitch!

Enraged, MAVIS chases a giggling JEZEBEL around the centre. 

Suddenly MAVIS gasps, clutches her ample chest, and falls to the ground. 

FADE OUT on MAVIS’S wide-open dead eyes, with JEZEBEL standing over her.

JEZEBEL

Where’s my teddy gone?

MUSIC OVER OF DRAMATIC PHILLIP GLASS-CLONED ARPEGGIOS.

FADE TO YVES KLEIN BLUE, THEN BLACK, THEN VERY DARK BLACK. 

IN PRAISE OF PUBLIC KISSING

Barely clothed beneath their clothes

They pash, his baseball cap nudging

Her pinned purple black fringe;

The bus lurches, and with a slack grin

His face falls into her lap 

Below the Plimsoll Line of skirt

And stays there till every neck

Aches from arching: She giggles,

At what, when there are so many choices,

And he resurfaces all out of breath

Gasps and suckers to her mouth and 

They don’t take breath for a full stop.

When the cosmos is nothing

But a drifting black hulk, 

A celestial Marie Celeste,

Those mouths will still be kissing

Blithely ignoring the departed god 

Allegedly behind it all, 

In whose name priests forbade 

The eating of meat of a Friday and 

The meeting of lips in a pubic place.