I’m just here outside ANSTO

What a wonderful delight

Saving the world you see 

With an Opal Reactor 

 

It is all about nuclear medicine, can’t you see? 

 

Oh that rare earths agreement 

Just a small timely thing

I mean seriously, of course we can

Yeah China might have the run 

It was good to allow them 

To take the environmental tonne, 

 

Oh we’re an ambitious little Australia

Cocky in our lot 

No need to tell anyone what’s going on

We’re Rome on the run, 

 

Nothing like a Western Sydney Wanderer

To make us feel important 

We are the sun

 

When history has forgot us 

Or when we’ve turned away from those small inconsequential facts 

I know deep down

You’ll unmask the lot 

So principled 

And proud 

 

 

And when the quiet reveals 

How you scrubbed aside the 

Irregularities 

How you carelessly 

Thought

Your place was more important

Than anything 

Else 

Then we’ll see

What rule you claim to 

Believe 

I sure as shit hope 

You’ve got some money 

For the sick. 

 

 

 

Isn’t it funny

They can publish newspapers 

As clearly lined 

As a modernist dream

But twixt them 

Well 

 

Anything that counters real power

Ain’t anywhere to be seen.

 

 

 

There is a thought

That as you get older

You’ll swarm closer to the 

Engines of power

And through wisdom 

Somehow know 

What is right and wrong 

But ultimately 

What happens is the fight goes 

The desire for friendship greater

So 

The estates wither 

And then damn those 

That aren’t 

Holding the line. 

 

 

 

I think the rage is 

That the fix is in 

That you cannot 

Change your circumstance

Although they claim 

That all are equal 

 

Even in the republic chime 

Are people who have benefited from 

Relationships that propelled them 

To power 

And it is this 

That is the grist 

That makes me green 

 

Because for all that equality propaganda 

Are people that owe all their success 

To privilege and connections 

 

So spare 

Me

Please. 

 

 

 

And what would it matter 

If I railed and roiled 

It is not business of yours 

I am not your fucking donut 

A piece of dough to raise and diminish 

When you feel fit

 

You have diminished me so many times 

And I have not forgotten 

 

You’d better be careful 

If I decide 

To use all my energy 

To reduce you to 

Whit. 

 

 

 

I can’t help it if you bore me 

You sort of do 

The lectures have been interminable 

Sort of like 

A parsons lunch 

The bastard place 

Is lousy with great stuff 

You run around being fabulous 

And here I am 

Sitting in a house 

Again

 

The conversations over the years 

Have been the equivalent 

Of horseshit being tipped over 

A face 

 

So 

 

I think it is time 

For you to get it back.

 

 

I’m a worker you see

I lovely little worker

I work so hard 

Let me tell you hard I work 

I mean how hard I work 

I am just such a hard worker 

So busy 

Whew 

 

Maybe if you told those 

That don’t have a job 

How great they can be

And stopped talking about how hard you work 

 

We wouldn’t call you 

A bunch of aggrandising tossers 

People have always worked 

You didn’t invent 

It

Dopey. 

 

 

 

Um Jared Diamond 

Comes to mind 

Can I go hard 

On the biological stuff 

Because it seems to me that yes 

That would be something 

That would 

Warrant a big bloody 

Investigation. 

 

 

 

African Swine Flu? 

Now what could be 

At the centre of that. 

What a 

Development

 

 

Diana

A fruitcake? 

No

They never got it those boys 

Still don’t 

Didn’t see 

The huge gap in their perception 

And ours 

 

Courtiers 

And crew

Should tread carefully 

When trying to define 

Someone we saw

As absolutely 

Brillant 

 

Beautiful and luminous 

A bona fide star

That was flesh and blood. 

 

Her tantrums 

A reaction to 

Byzantine plots 

 

You see 

The human when sensing 

Rightly or wrongly 

That they are 

A piece on a 

Chess board 

Will react like a wild

Animal 

Tethered 

Like Schoenaerts Mustang 

 

It is the animal instinct that kicks in 

Sensing that somewhere 

Lurks 

Danger or even

Just flagrant disrespect 

 

And I can imagine 

What prisoners feel 

It was like that 

For her

 

Well

They learnt a lesson

Clearly. 

 

 

 

And yet they continue 

To discuss 

Prisoner rehabilitation 

While allowing others 

To treat people 

Like 

Rubbish. 

 

Let’s just say 

I don’t react well 

To it 

As a notion 

And that’s 

The kind version.