I, said the hangman,
The local Sturm und Drang man,
I killed Ned Kelly.
Who saw him die?
I, said Judge Barry,
Like the stretching of Larry,
I saw him die.
Who’ll make his shroud?
We, said the Catholics,
With our Singer automatics,
We’ll make his shroud.
Who’ll dig his grave?
We, said the Protestants,
With our patronising goddy stance,
We’ll dig his grave.
Who’ll toll the bell?
I, said the editor,
Lest I’m thought a predator,
I’ll toll the bell.
What had Ned done?
Horse thief and murderer,
Outlaw, marauderer,
That’s what he’d done.
Hang on, that’s bullshit,
He was helping his mother,
The cops shot his brother,
He was deeply wronged.
Who’ll write the book?
We, cried nearly everyone,
By Friday we’ll have several done,
We’ll write the book.
Who’ll buy the film rights?
I, said a middle man,
My name is Lonigan,
I inherited the film rights.
Who’ll write the screenplay,
The complexity’s bewildering,
It should be done in Jerilderie,
As it is in heaven.
And who’ll do the marketing?
I, said Joe Byrne,
It’s my bloody turn,
I’ll do the marketing.
All the birds of the air,
Went to pieces and to jelly,
When they heard of the industry,
Around poor Ned Kelly.
Very Manly Hopkins
Very Manly was born in Adelaide, which he loved, but was posted to Newcastle, which he hated, by the Catholic Church, to which he converted while he was at university. When he was twenty-four he destroyed everything he had written and started again. No one has ever been able to understand why he did this but at least we don’t have the stuff he wrote before he was twenty-four.PIED AGAIN
I bought this morning Monday’s paper print-press-smelling,
And read it on the train propped up and trouser-resting,
Oh Lord I’m not well: a vision brindled bottles
Glinting nervous mottled jumpy shithouse brittle
Light a blast of whiteness headache nature’s fury strobing
Don’t turn lidded slit-squint window-ward-enquiring
Senses scream alert yell nuclear attack impending
Inside noises leaping brainwards jangle jostle!
Man adjacent eating toast with amplifier up nostril,
Woman knits jazz-needled piercing jagged deafening
Scream of braking shatters system winces standing
Up when blindness striking tragic arms outstretching
Sit when sight regained and egress tunnelwise effected
Glory be to God for bottled things. Use as directed.
Billy ‘The Swank’ Gilbert
Billy was best known for his work with ‘Nifty’ Sullivan, a musician he met at a party. Together they wrote HMAS Apronstring, IoSilver, The Mickydoo, Ruddibore, Foreman of the Yard and a number of other bits and pieces that are still performed today.THE PIRATES OF penzance.com
CEO: I am the very model of a modern chief executive,
Regardless of agenda items random or consecutive,
My salary’s enormous and related to performance,
In determining the role of which I’m always in concordinance;
My package isn’t income-based in any technicality,
Appreciating more in line with concepts like reality,
In options and in super and through trusts that list as charities,
I represent a movement in fiduciary disparities.
ALL: He represents a movement in fiduciary disparities.
CEO: I studied all the history from Adam Smith to Maynard Keynes,
And peppered it with knowledge that relates or even appertains,
To customs law and extradition, warehousing and arbitrage,
Being photographed at hospitals and other forms of camouflage.
ALL: To customs law and extradition, warehousing and arbitrage,
Being photographed at hospitals and other forms of camouflage.
CEO: I learnt the laws of real estate and how they work for foreigners,
I leveraged consulting fees to lenders and to borrowers,
I parked it in the market, there was never any fraud at all,
And if there was I cleaned it up when I became the auditor.
We always act within the law, we’re utterly meticulous,
We put out a prospectus and to say we don’t’s ridiculous,
In strictness of compliance either now or retrospecutive,
I am the very model of a modern chief executive.
ALL: In strictness of compliance either now or retrospecutive,
He is the very model of a modern chief executive.
CEO: I understood the principles that underlie insurances,
An actuary’s algorithms coupled with endurance is,
A scientific formula for risk in every continent,
And if you lose a billion you can say you were incompetent.
ALL: And if you lose a billion you can say you were incompetent.
CEO: My wife is unaware that she controls though being the signatory,
A unit trust that constitutes a fiscal death with dignity,
Amounts have disappeared for reinvestment by the million there,
I think I’m right in claiming that our schnauzer’s a hectillionaire.
When dividends are slow and normal salaries laborious,
My severance clause in contracts is the Hallelujah chorious,
In short in my objective that a fortune is pre-requitive,
I am the very model of a modern chief executive.
ALL: In short in matters decorative and dissolute and wreckutive,
He is the very model of a modern chief executive.
Teddy Bentley
The inventor of the detective novel, Teddy is best remembered for the fourline construction known as Cheerios, so called for no good reason.CHEERIOS
Allan Border,
Sequestered himself down the order,
And seldom, even during a rout,
Went out.
——————
The thing about Malcolm Fraser,
Was the authority of his old school blazer.
The pants, it should not be forgotten,
He wore less often.
——————
Reactions to Keating are funny,
And indexed completely to money.
Those with lots like him best,
Nonetheless.
Walter Burley Yeats
Often referred to as the authentic voice of Tasmania, Walter Burley Yeats was elected senator in 1922, and won the Nobel Prize for Shearing in 1931, 1932 and 1933.THE FLASHING GYRE
I run with the old men, piping their song,
The moon-mad and troubled engaged in a reel,
The careless white hair of them streaming along,
As they dance in the tops of the trees,
The loopy old men, the wild-eyed and punching,
Who better than know their heart’s beat?
For old men know of old women,
And old women have dreams at their feet.
I mistook the quickening fiddler’s hand
For the swan-beat of wings passing by,
For old men are merry when roaring with fire,
And birds and old women lament with the sky.
Or why if the wandering wind-dried MacCool
And Brigid hold hands at the Hobart Fair
Should not old men salmon-leap into the ditch,
Remembering glances that sang on the air?
Arthur ‘Guitar Boogie’ Patterson
You can smell gum trees in the nation’s authentic verse, full of bush lore and traditional yarns, many slightly exaggerated in a typically larrikin way but with a strong and distinctive rhythm which seems to come from deep among the mountain wattles and is unlike any other verse in the English language.THE AUTHENTIC AUSTRALIAN BUSH BALLAD
There was kipling at the Kipling for the kipling got around,
That the colt
