trout

Larrikin Republic

David Eggleton

The Royal Order of Bronzed Ockers
spends a groat to sow a sack of wild oats.
Gladiators cut manly locker-room cackle,
and garrote with Y-fronts wedding tackle.
Gutter poets of Bondi Junction go ahem,
before coughing up a sanguine phlegm.
A bored blowfly does televised wing-overs,
then touches down on a political nose.
The umbrellas of Circus Gluteus Maximutt
shade the she-god of shoes kicking butt.
Looking for a big fridge to chill out in,
Newtown dies the death of the slow burn.
Pinchgut's immortal waterfront skydive
senses the ennui beneath being alive.

Rusty nails spike the crown of Leichhardt,
hunting a white eucalypt's dead heart.
The guide to serial killers' poison sacs
shows each has its fan-club of blood-ticks.
These ticks surf red tides of ink-nib spray,
causing Commonwealth bonds to fray.
Officers throw open ship container doors
to admit sweat-shops of world trade wars,
while galahs flap in from faraway coasts
to ululate over Uluru, as if to boast
how vertigoes of glory threaten to flatten,
like a diesel grader, Darwin in a dream.
Possum gliders ploughing rainforest canopy
are found at last inside Macquarie's dictionary.