I understand the cost of unemployment,
And writing off the loans to racketeers,
I know because recession perseveres,
The rich need subsid…I’m sorry, adjustments,
But would you mind please, not Italian suits.
Could unconcern be slightly less baroque?
And might the crappier aspects of the play
Be slightly less accompanied by lutes?
And perhaps some footnotes might explain the joke
When Placido gives Telecom away.
Alexandra Pope
Alexandra did a quadricep muscle in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics and was somewhat acerbic in her appraisal of those more fortunate. Most of her better-known works concerned themselves with sport and human folly: ‘Laker and Lock’, ‘Abelard around the Wicket to Eloise’, ‘Imitations of Morris’ and ‘Essay on Twelfth Man’, many of which were first published in the Spectator.THE WARNIAD
Prodigious talent is a dang’rous thing;In cricket, whether pace or spin or swing;A bowler’s gift, though great, can scarce be said,To change the course of history, raise the dead;Advance the state of man or still the storm;But here’s a rule t’which flannelled fools conform:Perspective, in a sportsman on TV,Is in inverse proportion to the fee.8Imagine doing tweak*, or line and length;wrist spinOr whatever you imagined was your strength;In front of thousands, some of whom who came,Sunburnt and pissed as skunks, to chant your name;Disguising by your role as sporting oaf;Your enormous wealth, Italian car, or boaf.14It’s heady stuff, but no man is divine;And those the gods would mock, they first re-sign;Then elevate with flattery* from those;blandishmentsWhose own base purpose services their prose;Until the point, with Hubris at the wheel;It’s too late to renegotiate the deal;Now temptation and the blandishments* begin;flatteryAnd a shifting of allegiance comes with sin.22You protest that you resisted, but ‘tis limp;The front page is not your friend. It is the pimp;And now the trap. You sold yourself. ‘Tis commerce;That will distance you from truth to keep your promise;Since ‘tis tricky, with the road to Mammon* open;Map 17 F3To recall exact maternal wording spoken.28Take one, take two; but do not read the label;The one behind the legs that was unplayable;‘Twill be the more impressive when your weight;Is less the pudgy look the sponsors hate;And more the Lleyton Hewitt whippet look;You can always say you misheard or mistook; The dosage; and Australia as a nation;Is accustomed to pigs flying in formation.36Catch, catch the ball good Gillie! Got him! Out!‘You’re out you useless prick!’ goes up the shout;You’re re-deified and think you’re back in clover;But when the umpire hands your hat back with ‘It’s over’;Face then thy facts, presume not fate to sledge;Shut-up, get off the smokes and take the pledge.42
Jeoffry Smart
An Adelaide poet, whose work often concerned the relationship between men and freeways, alienation and the colour grey.HOOSAGOOD BOYTHEN
For I will consider my dog, Grant.
For he is an example to all living creatures.
For he expresses joy in his every movement.
For he knows each day contains fresh delights.
For he wags his tail when he sees me in the morning.
For he is sometimes so excited he tries to climb up me.
For he pays attention to details, such as jumping in the back of the ute.
For he is adept in the areas of barking and running from side to side.
For I tell him to sit down and shut-up and he sits down and shuts up.
For before he sits down he turns around.
For he knows his way around a building site.
For when he was a pup I used to slip him down inside my jumper.
For he comes to where I am working and sits near me.
For when I say gidday Grant, he barks once.
For this signifies the team is together.
For if a vehicle pulls up he goes to see who it is.
For I sometimes ask him where I’ve left my hammer.
For when I have a pie I give him a bit off the end.
For he also enjoys milkshakes.
For these are a break from water in a plastic container.
For he pleases himself about when he eats.
For he is something of a scavenger.
For we have discussed this on many occasions.
For I must be careful what I say.
For he is looking at me now as I write.
For in his behaviour he is not always angelic.
For he is sometimes the devil.
For every now and then he falls to the occasion.
For example I disapproved of him this morning.
For I was installing some bathroom fittings.
For he entered the room and placed on the floor an offering.
For he announced this tribute with a single, very loud bark.
For I nearly fell off my ladder and shat myself.
For the offering was a blue-tongue lizard.
For he had made a fair old mess of it.
For I will spare you the details.
For you can probably imagine.
For in the evening he sometimes jumps on the couch.
For we watch TV together if there’s something good on.
For he especially likes the footy.
For he isn’t allowed to watch TV with my girlfriend.
For she doesn’t like it when he tries to root her leg.
For I tell her that he means well.
For he means better than any other creature I know.
For he is a very smart boy all round.
For he understands he can’t fit down my jumper any more.
For he stole the jumper and put it in his bed.
Bill Blake
The late Bill Blake, rebel, painter and engraver, was a seasonal rabbiter who only dabbled in poetry until finishing runner-up in ‘New Faces’ with The Book of Thel. After that, there was no holding him and many of his works are now among the most familiar in the language.THE WORK OF HARMONY
Whose hobs are these, whose forging shape?
What metal wrought? What noble ape
With mighty arm in clamour raises
What the bellows? What the blazes?
Is it truly thee Oh Lord,
Whose alchemy transmutes the sward?
Or is the serpent active yet?
The cygnet and the leveret
Have robed in joy and innocence,
The beauty of thy congruence.
Rabbi Burns
The son of poor farmers, Rabbi Burns became well known for poems in the regional dialect of The Mallee.TO A HOWARD
Wee, sleekit, cowerin, tim’rous beastie,
I know tha’s probably doing thy bestie,
But the kind’st heart wuid ha’ to see
Thou’s nay made a fist o’ the thing,
For e’en when there’s nothin at a’ to
