Rob Walker


Ode To An Elevator

Oh steely cage, Oh stainless vault
I understand it's not your fault
That you reflect vicissitudes,
(It's really quite a pisser, dudes.)

While escalators climb obliquely
You move erratically and meekly
In fits and starts on cable sinuous
While Ed perambulates continuous

Your cargo views the Shopping Mall
While mine stares blankly at the wall.
While shoppers set their own sweet pace,
Office workers keep their place.
The escalated reach new heights
The lift ones stare at numbered lights.
A Power failure prompts 'Farewell'-
My Heart prefers the old stairwell


A forty nine year old child sees his first bumblebee

kew gardens, march 2003)
surely this is nature's joke?
aerodynamic enigma

fat tumbling furball of
black mohair mumbling

sotto lobby
of delegates

it disappears into a
crocus (there! suck i!)

soundz the hazard
buzzer, reversez

is this for real?!
MMMMM... it repliezzz

waddling off through air in
its woollen tigers Guernsey


Bob Fox

at the Victor Harbor Folk Festival, Sept 30, 2001)
inside a night
in a humid
september marquee

Bob Fox his name was
if ever there was
an anglo name

who took a disparate pile
middle aged ingenues
and youthful ferals

a story
of miners,
he told

the Tine,
Whitby,
and greek lightning

eloquently his sausage
fingers spoke
with crisp new strings

a hatred mutual
of economic
irrationalism

Bob made a community
in 30 minutes
inside a marquee

on a humid night
in september
as we waited for the next world war


Collateral Language

wars.
i've seen them start.
a conflict
taking sides
demonising the Others
who become The Enemy
moderates become
Enemy Sympathisers
i've seen the posturing
testosterone drowning reason
sabre-rattling.
military buildup .
wargames.
inevitability .
the small incident trigger.
the tension..

when it starts, the release
the Worship of Technology
control of information
the quick war
that gets longer
the occupation
bodies coming home in bags
euphemisms
killed babies renamed "collateral damage"
the mire
a turning tide called public opinion
the cry of
never
again


The Dream of Wearing Shorts Hardly Ever

Kingdom of Flaunt this ain't.
Only Westerners flash corpulent carnal thighs
Even in this muggy clime

Our river bends are paved
Drinking water snakes in a steel
pipe across the causeway

Birds twik twik in virtual
changi forests

We tolerate the sarong, dhoti, sari
but our real National Costume is a long white shirt,
tie and long black pants.

there's always the airconditioner

we're more Western than Westerners
who stand out on Orchard Road,
sore thumbs and dogs' balls

nothing says Aussie tourist
more than a loud rowwll voice
louder shirt
shorts and a hat

you can keep your green timber
we want glass and concrete,
the quality of sprawl
towards the calm sea

to look across newly reclaimed land

our great island moving
further out into the tropics