The Even More Complete Book of Australian Verse
Page 2
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 say
And ye’d far better tak to th’ hills fo’ th’ day
Tha opens thy gob a’ the drop o’ the noo
And thou lets the wind bloo tha tongue aroon.
Och ye poor wee laddie, ye’ve no got the breen,
Ye’ve no got the sense to come oot o’ the reen,
Why don’t thou gi’e it awa’ and gae hame,
It’s no guid th’ watch if ye can’t tell th’ tame,
There are jobs gang aplenty awa’ at the farm
Afrightening birds by waving th’ arms,
Ye ken they’re gae keen t’ employ the bold laddies
Awa’ at the links where they’re lookin for caddies,
If that’s no to thy taste and thou’s wanting a change
Thou’ll try wi’ th’ gunnery up at the range,
Thou’ll no have much truible, thou’ve dun it afore,
Thou’s an expert for a’ that; look, ‘Wanted: Small Bore’.
Arnold Wordsworth
Arnold Wordsworth was a plumber in Sydney during the first half of the nineteenth century and was responsible for much of the underground piping in Annandale and Balmain. He lived with his sister Gail and with his mate Ewen Coleridge, who shared his interest in plumbing, poetry and Gail.
LINES COMPOSED ABOUT HALF-WAY ACROSS THE PYRMONT BRIDGE
Earth has not anything to show more fair,
Soft would he be of swede, a quid unfull,
Who would willingly forgo such a view,
For lo, the sparrow breaketh of his wind
And this entire joint looks not too foul,
Stand back, for when she goes, she bloody goes.
Trevor Henry Leigh Hunt
When ‘Jenny Hit Me’ was first published in 1838, Trevor Henry Leigh Hunt ran the Examiner and knew almost everyone in Australia. A friend of Stumpy Byron V.C., Neville Shelley and Jay Esmill, he also supported Warren Keats and ‘Shagger’ Tennyson when they were getting going. He did two years in Long Bay for criticising a lobster in a Sydney restaurant.
JENNY HIT ME
Jenny hit me when we met, Leaping from the knee she sat on;
Fate, you clown, who love to get Medals on your chest, pin that on!
Say I’m ancient, say I’m mad, Say the costume doesn’t fit me,
Say that Santa drinks, but add, Jenny hit me.
Thomas Wolfe
Possibly not a poet of the first rank, but related on his mother’s side to two members of the Literature Board, one of whom is a publisher and the other an arts adviser to the Bicentennial. Wolfe wrote approximately four poems and now lives in Tuscany.
THE BURIAL OF SURGEON MOORE AT NARRUNGA
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note
As his mortal remains we carried,
From the secret laboratory round to his house
To the woman to whom he was married.
‘Begging your pardon,’ we said to his wife,
‘Your husband appears to have carked it,
We’ve brought all his papers and tapers and things
And the ute is outside where he parked it.
There’s nothing unsafe about nuclear testing,
Be perfectly clear about that,
He might have said otherwise but he was wrong,
Here, look at the hole in his hat.’
Warren Keats
An unashamedly modern poet whose interest is in marrying classical forms with contemporary themes. Warren’s promise is limitless if he can beat the grog.
A CUSTOMARY TALE
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He wandered up to Bangkok
The people for to see—
There he saw
That a whore
Was as pretty,
That a fight
Was as hitty,
That a kilo
Was as sold,
That a jail
Was as cold,
That a bribe
Was as taken,
That for
Was as saken,
That a lie
Was as sworn,
That a sucker
Was as born
Every minute—
So he sat in the dock
And he wonder’d
He wonder’d
He sat in the dock
And he wonder’d.
Fifteen Bobsworth Longfellow
Fifteen Bobsworth Longfellow was an Adelaide academic who wrote instructions for kit-set model products, mainly balsa wood aircraft and submarines which ran on baking powder. The manual included here was for the assembling of a twenty-five-foot aircraft carrier marketed by Myer stores between 1954 and 1960.
MYER’S WHOPPER
Take the pieces from the package,
Lay them out as per the graph,
Gathering the bits you’ll need,
Removing what you shouldn’t have.
With the implement provided
Ease the bearings to the left,
Push the little angled mullion
Up into the socket ‘F’.
This will free the moulded bracket
Holding back the nylon strand,
Draw the slippery hoop and coupling
Through the right-hand rubber-band.
Put the topside brown side outside,
Push the inside upside down,
Underneath the left-hand wingnut,
Press the folding backward crown.
Overlapping lifting side-flaps
Lower in to fit the screws,
Pack up tools, retire to distance,
Don protective hat, light fuse.
Ted Lear
Ted Lear popularised limericks in his A Book of Rubbish, although tragically he failed to recognise that the way to make them work was to have a filthy last line.
LIMERICKS
There was an old man with a beard,
A funny old man with a beard,
He had a big beard,
A great big old beard,
That amusing old man with a beard.
——————
There once was a woman whose hat,
Was a regular brute of a hat,
Oh a hat she did wear,
On the top of her hair,
And everyone said ‘Look! A hat!’
——————
There was an old fellow from Bong,
Who hailed in the first place from Bong,
From Bong did he come,
With Bongolian rum,
That humorous old fellow from Bong.
——————
There was an old man with a bird,
Who was an old man with a bird,
The bird with the man,
Confessed, ‘It’s absurd,
I’m the bird with the man with the bird!’
——————
There was an old man with a goat,
An amusing old man with a goat,
The man with the goat,
Was a man with a goat,
&n
bsp; That interesting old man with a goat.
——————
There once was this doctor called Jones,
A medical doctor, named Jones,
And this Doctor Jones,
This doctor, this Jones,
Was a crazy old doctor called Jones.
As well as writing limericks, Ted Lear has left us with some of the most enchanting nonsense verse in the language.
THE PIBBLEDY-POBBLEDY MAN
When the Yonghy Bonghy’s singly fat
On the coast of the Fimbly Far,
And the beauteous Lady Jingly’s hat
Looks up at the evening star.
He weeps alone on the shingly shore,
He pumpkinly goes for a walk,
Drinks his marsala through calico straws,
He haveth a runcible dork.
Rapidly numerous,
Vapidly humorous,
He mourns with a sweet guitar,
The wonderful pussy is loved by the owl
Who feels a complete galah.
When the Yonghy Bonghy has lost his way,
The birds make a nest in his beard,
He sits in the afternoon-tea tree,
And regrets it is just as he feared.
William McGonigall
William McGonigall was once a familiar sight around the universities, where he wrote and performed in the bardic manner. Although largely ignored at that time, he later headed a government steering committee on arts funding and in this capacity set up the Australian Literature Board. To this day their policy reflects all essential aspects of William McGonigall.
THE WESTGATE BRIDGE DISASTER
I’m extremely sorry to have to say,
A terrible thing happened the other day,
On the otherwise beautiful Port Phillip Bay,
An enormous but unspecified degree of destruction
Has pole-axed the bridge which was under construction,
And a number of souls have been spirited away.
Oh appalling thing! Ye girders immersed!
The Westgate Bridge is completely burst,
Such dreadful events could ne’er be rehearsed,
How distressing for the perished, honour their memory,
Some of them probably served with Montgomery,
Although of all their experiences this would be the worst.
It was said by experts that the bridge was all right,
But boy were the experts in for a fright,
When bits of the aforementioned sank out of sight,
With a crash and a hideous graunching sound!
Many fragments on the sea-bed later were found,
And the Westgate Bridge was in a desperate plight.
The Rev. George Gilfillan saw the bridge begin to sway,
A popular and highly moral man which no one can gainsay,
And for the emergency telephone he did reach without delay,
And he nobly sought assistance from the suitably qualified,
‘Our gracious span is in grave peril. Do something!’ he cried,
Which the people of Melbourne remember to this very day.
The immortal William Shakespeare is needed at such times,
Whose understanding of tragedy is surpassing fine,
Such as for instance certain bits of Othello which are truly most sublime,
Only he this catastrophe in its magnitude so vast,
Could describe although ironically he’s dead and in the past,
A loss which the people of Melbourne will mourn for a very long time.
A pall hangs over Melbourne which can ne’er be blown away,
And which no sensible person has any reason to gainsay,
And the pall is particularly prominent over Port Phillip Bay,
Where a combination of dreadful weather
And a lack of adequate bracing together,
Brought such tragic results on October 15th 1970 which was not a happy day.
Emmy-Lou Dickinson
Film devotees will remember Emmy-Lou as an extra in Witness (directed by fellow Australian Peter Weir) but it is as a poet that she is best known to date. A very quiet person, she lives alone near Lakes Entrance and speaks only to small children on her mother’s side.
POEMS
Are you anybody? I’m not either,
Come over here before somebody finds us,
We’ll hide so everyone fails to notice
That nobody knows where we are.
Imagine being someone, Yikes!
How appalling—like a toad—
Puffing up one’s throat all day
For a lot of other warts.
——————
Exhilaration is the coming
Of the mariner uphill,
Through the wood—along the ridge—
To the utmost peak—
From the land as if for the first time
The sailor watches the storm
With the godlike perspective
Afforded by the recognition
Of form.
——————
What is? Is this?
Can this be? If not this—
Then what? Something else?
Nothing?
Death perhaps?
Death is not nothing—
Death is something—it happens—
It follows something else—
Or nothing—
Or something other than either—
Possibly this.
——————
Preciousness is the essential aspect
Of all the things that are precious;
I’m pretty sure this is right—
It is certainly a lovely idea.
——————
To wither away of boredom
With only the bee to consider
Is my choice—my right—my life—
My start—my end—my God.
——————
I fear the small—
The slight—the brief—
The large I can deal with—
But the speck—the infinity
Inside the merest particle—
Is enormous.
Thomas ‘The Tank’ Hardy
A member of the prominent Hardy family, which included Mary, Frank, James and Laurelin, Tom wrote novels but everyone agreed they were no good and he turned to poetry. The everyone who agreed his novels were no good wore their underpants on their head and could count to four.
THE FAILED BUSINESSMAN
Why Harry, my boy, and how do you do?
How lovely to see you, so prosperous too,
How came you by raiment of such quality?
‘Oh hadn’t you heard? I went bankrupt,’ said he.
The last time I saw you, you hadn’t two bob.
You petitioned my brother to give you a job.
And yet now you move in high so-cie-ty.
‘One meets a broad circle, when bankrupt,’ said he.
Your card here gives your address as the suite
In the bank building up at the top of the street.
You advise them, it says. And you charge them a fee?
‘Yes, they’re not yet aware that they’re bankrupt,’ said he.
I must say I’m slightly surprised by your car,
The phone not so much but the TV and bar,
In times of distress, tell me how can that be?
‘It belongs to my wife. She’s not bankrupt,’ said he.
And whose are these paintings here stuffed in the back?
They must be worth millions, my God there’s a stack
Of western art’s finest old masters I see.
‘One’s pleasures are simple, when bankrupt,’ said he.
But surely you’re working to clear all your debt,
With a management plan and advisers to get
A repayment arrangement in place so you’re free.
‘Oh we don’t do accounts when we’r
e bankrupt,’ said he.
But the company has assets and so has the trust,
Transfer them and sell them and pay what you must,
As director you must have the authority.
‘Oh I wouldn’t trust me. I’m a bankrupt,’ said he.
But your reputation will carry the stain,
You must fight to clear at all costs your good name,
We each have a right to our own dignity.
‘Oh we don’t give a fuck when we’re bankrupt,’ said he.
Carol Lewis
Lewis’s real name was actually Shirley Lutwidge Dodson. A logician and amateur photographer from Young, in New South Wales, Shirley’s great works Alison Wonderland and Who Are You Looking At? became instant classics.
THE HUNTING OF THE SMIRK
‘Twas ruddock and the blundertrope
All romping through the perjyblade,
Did slither down the sewerscope
To the Frightenhate Parade.
Beware the Crockacrap my boy
The doubt that nags, the mud that sticks.
Beware the sumptuous Mediaploy,
And shun Yesmanarchbishoprics.
Who said that? Children overboard?