Back In The U.S.S.R.

The flats across the park
from South Kensington
station
turn into a tinted postcard
entitled: "The
reconstruction of
Omsk".

Little Elegy

The bell rings;
Ted is dead.

"Mediochre".

Bud Powell's "Mediochre"
is the sort of cake-walk
they'd do in "Blade
Runner".

Nineteen Eighty-Eight.

The Nation stumbles
towards the Bicentennial
to a sentimental music of its
own creation;
McCubbin's Pioneer
becomes
a three-part mini-series.

Obit. Marvin Gaye.

Miles from anywhere
dogs play cards
over the bar of a hotel
where for twenty cents
a man shot by his father
sings
"Ain't that peculiar
baby".

Qantas Bags.

Only the truly bourgeois
choose to advertise;
the proletariat wear
commercials
like disfigurements.

A Request.

Wired up like
the Mona Lisa in a face pack
I'm writing ahead,
pushing to exhaustion the line,
the loaded words
that claim so much
who "only want a drink".

Rock'n'roll.

A heart like smashed china
at a Tupperware party.

Salute.

In the Book of Twentieth
Century French Poetry
my placemark is a
bandage
depicting tigers on roller
skates.