Ezekiel Mad
Ezekiel came from Bathurst, as quickly as possible. He introduced everyone to everyone else, rewrote poems for people he met on trains, invented new movements in art, music and literature and then lost the lot gambling on the result of World War II.CANTO MCXVXIV
Mr Pyrex, Mr Ichabod Pyrex, fourth male progeny
Of prominent grazier stock, they rich and elegant
In slaughter, is to be married, there being
A robust, enduring, hairy fear of the alternative,
Which does not occur in nature if, as in the current case,
The culling is done sufficiently often.
Upon finding himself at a point of lacuna in his odyssey
He recently partook of a novel, littorally,
On the Aegean, which he noted was bottomless.
Point of interest here being that Marcus Antonius
Elected to conduct a land battle at Atrium,
On something that was bottomless.
And being as he was from the peopled Republic of Americky
And his team badly needing a Homer at the top of the 20th,
He perfected the transmuting of self-pity into modernism
Through the fascist miracle of editing,
And with sensation and insight on first and second
He blasted the difference out of the park,
To clinch the World Series for the Paris Bluebells.
It is logically impossible to imagine being dead
Since nothing is beyond the power of the mind,
Even the tense is present continuous,
The case, which is imperative, doesn’t matter,
And the mood, which is unconditional, all depends.
Reports of my life have been greatly exaggerated.
Testes, one, two, testes, testes,
Hello, this is Muzzo calling,
Do you read me? Do you read me?
Does anyone read me? Does anyone read?
Does anyone do anything anymore?
Sometimes I think this might all be a mistake but if I stop now
I could look responsible for my own actions
And there goes my defence.
I could have been a contender, I had it all,
Every shot in the book, and footwork,
There wasn’t anyone could touch me, in my day,
I was good, I was very good,
And where did it get me!
Handmaiden to the stars, midwife to genius,
C’mon! For Chrissake! You cannot be serious!
You are the pits of the entire world!
Code violation Mr Mad. Deuce.
That’s the trouble, always the deuce.
Always the goddam deuce.
Some of my best friends are Penalty Mr Mad.
Time wasting. 30/40.
That Wyndham Lewis, when he first came to me
He couldn’t paint his own name, and that little Beach,
The woman in the bookshop. Joyce was it? I just forget the name.
And Ford the only man among them. But that Eliot,
I’ll tell you what, say what you like about him,
He made the trains run on time.
Mr Laughlin, Mr Jemmie Laughlin, of Laughlin and Laughlin,
Scion of the family, they rich in irony and adept
At sliding down mountains, is most devoutly to be thanked,
I am the mad Carew now. I am Ben Gunn in a wicker cage,
And I am Lear. But am I, as Hamlet my task,
The fool? Or am I only the king?
T. S. (Tabby Serious) Eliot
Tabby Serious Eliot was born in Mallacoota but went to school and university in Melbourne, qualifying as a surveyor in 1915. Among his other works is Old Ponce’s Book of Practical Webbers.THE ACCOUNTING CAT
Liquidity’s a mystery; it’s very rarely seen,
It strikes and then is gone again, its getaway is clean,
And despite forensic evidence and great deductive flair,
The conclusion’s inescapable, Liquidity’s not there!
Liquidity, Liquidity, there’s nothing like Liquidity,
Its presence gives you confidence, its absence is timidity,
You own perhaps a property, you own perhaps a share,
But once you’ve lost your credit card, Liquidity’s not there!
Your understated opulence inheres in what you wear,
But in the end you face the fact, Liquidity’s not there!
Liquidity’s a nifty term, it’s business talk for cash,
It’s money not tied up in things or hoovered in the crash,
Investments may return amounts of staggering obscenity,
The vastness of your holdings may explain your great serenity.
In publishing, to take the case of either of the Fabers,
A warehouse full of Larkin and The Bumper Book of Neighbours,
Is very well, and when they sell, will satisfy the editors,
But not much use, in real terms, when dealing with the creditors.
Liquidity, Liquidity, there’s nothing like Liquidity,
The glint of actual ducats brings respect and dipthelidity,
It’s likely to self-immolate on contact with the air,
Say ‘Raffle’ in a crowded room; Liquidity’s not there!
In the conduct of a company (proprietary limited),
There’s always a suspicion that the system’s maladministered,
In proper corporate planning you allow a little spare,
But when you need the wherewithal, Liquidity’s not there!
Liquidity, Liquidity, there’s nothing like Liquidity,
In purely economic terms it constitutes validity,
I wish I had a pound for every credit millionaire,
Who completely failed to register, LIQUIDITY WASN’T THERE!
When reputations tumble and the search is on for clues,
(I might mention humpo-bumpo, I might mention drinkie-poos)
There’s a suspect who can prove he was in Lima at the time,
They can’t catch him, he’s the brilliant Scarlet Pimpernel of crime!THE LOVE SONG OF J. ARTHUR PERPEND
Let us go then, you and I,
While there’s still time to read and classify,
Measuring the margins on the little fey barometer
That marks the calibrations of our talk.
In the room the women come and go
Despite what I read in the papers.
Old is what I seem increasingly to be,
Tobacco-tranced in time I watch the sea,
It was a dark and stormy old pyjama cord
That lashed me to my dream of others moored,
There followed soft a moment put on hold
With a wind without a rug against the cold
And someone, call it someone, up on an elbow,
For argument’s sake, might say,
‘You have missed the point,
You have completely missed the point.’
In the room the women come and go
But not, perhaps regrettably, with me.
Marianne More
Born near Broken Hill, Marianne More has always had a feeling for the expanse and majesty of Australia and the natural world. She went to school in Adelaide.THE MAJESTY OF GREAT BIG ANIMALS
The majesty of bison as they roam,
Is awesome, in the North, in spring, I’ve seen,
The majesty of lizards, and observed,
The majesty of easy climbing birds,
Whose majesty is manifest in groups.
The trees are in their awesome beauty now,
Majestic kangaroos abound in scores,
And groups of birds lift lazily and wheel,
Like lazy groups of wheeling birds aloft,
Especially near a river, did you ever
Just consider, the majesty of rivers?
Morris Clarke
Morris is concerned with the language,
