He’s gone from here of course, but he’ll be back,
We’ll be asked if we can house an ageing turk,
He’s smart enough to give himself the sack,
If it looks as if he’ll have to do some work.’THIS BE THE CHORUS
They piss you off, your kids, I guess
They’re got at by these Freudian shits,
As if it’s our fault they’re a mess.
After all I’ve done for tits.
Vern Scanlon
Very big in the local RSL in Mackay, Vern has long been concerned with the major themes of twentieth-century writing: violence, the RSL and Mackay.STANDING ORDERS
Some nights, after lights out,
I slip round to Bluey Nesbitt’s,
And after a few snifters,
We turn back the German advance.
Pulling the pins from six bread-rolls
With our teeth, we hurl them
Into the shed where moonlight assures us
A crack Panzer Division Victa Utility
Has been moved up on to our flank.
It’s dirty work
But someone’s got to do it.DREAM
All those women who have not got
Beautiful breasts and great legs
And lovely soft sweet-smelling hair
One pace forward Betty Grable where the bloody hell do you think you’re going?
Miloslab Holden
Inventor, epidemiologist and poet. Originally from Geelong, Miloslab's family settled in Adelaide and became very prominent in linoleum. Miloslab studied medicine at Adelaide University and is a world authority on germs.PATHOLOGY REPORT
The patient presented with a vague melancholy
Accompanied by some slight echolalia and lassitude.
Over the period of observation, being two or three hours
Patient developed full-blown regrets and ingested several
Tinctures of The Mixture, taken swiftly without ice or water.
Onset of coprolalia noticeable as elixir hit bloodstream,
Followed by some distillation of pupils and early Tourette’s,
With increased incapacity of muscular system
Culminating in attempt to perform section of ‘Danny Boy’
Beginning ‘But come ye back…’ followed by
Dysfunctional behaviour with regard to other sex,
Antiperistalsis, loss of speech, partial paralysis
And sleep on floor of wardrobe with mop on face.
Patient is aged forty-four, married, with three children.
Tests reveal no abnormality although subject
Could possibly do with singing lesson.
Patient has intermittent inflammation of the past.
Condition not uncommon in patient’s age-group.
No known cure at this stage although sufferers
Often experience only a chronic benign longing
And do not develop secondary infections. These are
Sometimes fatal and should be nipped in the bud.
Patient should avoid remembering whenever possible.
Anne Bonkford
Bonkford studied with Bowell and wasn’t mad either. At all. Her concerns are those of the self in daily life, particularly that of the east coast between Eden and Merimbula.
WHERE WAS JFK WHEN HE HEARD THAT I WAS SHOT?
One morning in 1962,
A beautiful woman, husky-voiced,
Married but not completely satisfied within three months
Fell in love with God in the supermarket
While she was looking at some sunglasses.
He was the one, she knew. That face.
Those eyes. This was it. She was gone.
She would have given her life for him.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘I am Yahweh,’ he said.
‘What do you do?’ she said.
‘I am a creator,’ he said.
‘A creator?’ she said, ‘Really?
I’ve never seen you at the meetings.’
‘I am everywhere,’ he said.
‘I am a bit all over the place myself,’ she said.
‘I am the light and the way,’ he said.
‘I’ll bet you are,’ she said. ‘Is there a Mrs Yahweh?’
‘No,’ he said with a smile which surpassed all understanding.
‘You’re single?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘I am three.’
‘I understand,’ she said, ‘I’m in exactly the same position.’
Ted Cruise
Married a prominent fellow-artiste. It has been argued, perhaps persuasively, that his work may in some respects have been overshadowed by the fact that she was so much better at it than he was. He nevertheless continued to dominate his own work with a crushing domination.IS EVERYBODY HAPPY?
My father, should it please the court, will represent himself,
An experienced and dedicated expert in the field,
Whenever there was trouble somewhere deep in the interior,
He’d send himself outside to say that everything was fine.
When his nerves were badly burnt in an atmospheric storm
And his emotions had been torn apart by lightning,
And he’d been very badly burnt fighting fire with Johnnie Walker,
He confided to the press he'd had the flu.
When TV showed the family home exploding after lift-off
Caused by heating in the O Rings, leaks, or just a bit of hatred,
He stepped forward, cleared his throat and issued forth a little statement;
‘Go to sleep,’ he said. ‘It’s natural. It happens all the time.’
For twenty years he fell apart, providing what he thought
Was moral leadership; inspiring what he told himself was confidence,
The qualities he most admired in Churchill and himself
And the things to watch in riffraff such as anybody else.
When he was eighty-four and small and frightened of his God
And of ours and of none and of the prospect of all three,
He kept himself at work, his little airbrush and his history
Ensuring that there be no thought that anything was wrong.
All his life he calmed the troops down, without apparent
Knowledge that the troops knew very well who’d calmed them up.
It became a bond among them; brought them close and kept them sane,
Made them love each other. That was good. He liked that. He was proud,
They were lucky to be part of it, this thing that he’d created,
It was almost like a family, a spokesman nearly said.
Derek Benaud
Man of the Series at the 1992 World Literature Awards. His work reflects a deep concern for his country’s uncertain future and captures beautifully the rhythm of the local patois and the prospect of perhaps a light shower later in the day.THE CENTRAL COMMENTARY POSITION
The devil is coming in off the long run
And I am batting. Last man in and four hundred years to win back
The first one going down leg side I stand up
And pull it round the corner, get on to it nicely
And loft it into the number three stand. The crowd goes mad.
The devil is coming down the pitch with the hands
On the hips, looking at me with the stare, the evil stare.
The next one straight at my head, I lean away and flick it
Over the slips cordon to the boundary. This time he’s really angry.
He’s a red man now the devil. Is there a Mrs Devil I wonder,
Does she have to put up with this sort of crap every time
She expresses herself?
All right for him but
