Sunday, October 30, 2011

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.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

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.


Sunday, October 16, 2011

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. 




Sunday, October 9, 2011

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.