Published in ‘Silently On The Tide’ (2005)
…could feel the weakness of… big/local govt… what sort of culture…
will not be available… best sort of market we can… people have a global…
This is an age of data and dead hills.
This is a time of envenomed meal for the mouth.
. In the newsroom they are all a-lather:
will interest rates move,
the current account take a dive,
will a j-curve pigstick that lionised moneymover
. who took the nation to the cleaners
. but had a red shot at a yacht race?
Today I learned:
. of the poised scythe
. . of technocratic joblessness;
. of the unstable acid plant
. . just a demon’s foul fart from the CBD;
. of mechanics by the plantful
. dying of organ rot from lethal de-greasers;
. that half the planet’s avifauna
. . face obliteration’s fell axe within fifty years.
But not on the Moody’s rated, deficit-funded news.
This is a time of words for the killing.
. Friendly fire. Collateral damage.
. Icons of a chameleon language,
. . smog-thick and sly.
This is a time for worship of those whose Midas lives
. are built upon Blacktown, Broadmeadows, Bridgewater,
. and upon the hourly extinction
. of a unique craft of life.
When the majesty of life is degraded to resource.
When it is those who defend the lifeworld
. from the privateers of a marauding market
. who are accused of the ‘locking up’.
When goodfellows-all are freely chosen
. to ease the small death of wonder today,
. and the harder death tomorrow.
Words. Words. Walled within words.
After Peter Stephenson, White Words 1, 1991, oil on canvas; White Words 2, 1992, oil on canvas; White Words 7, 1992, oil on canvas.
