Tongue Tied

High Kitsch
Tossing up whether to stay,
in trouble for needling tone
weeding out redundancy,
extraneous “that’s”,
nervous “buts” grating,
musicians can’t get away with
bum notes, a voice singing flat,
drums out of time, violin out of tune.
In writing and painting,
does anything go?
with crafty nitpicking
dropped stitches unravel knitting.
“Art is a matter of opinion”
bleats the vainglorious fool,
“to write at all is better than silence”
yet quietude is restful and brainfarts terrorize,
crackling chip packets in cinemas,
literary abstract expressionists
demand respect for widdershin words,
the minimalist scribes for a single dot
in the centre of the page
.
what’s the bloody point of words anyway
if clumsy drivel is high art too,
do you feel anything at all?
do you suck or blow?

Jinjirrie, February 2021

Wankers (A Sonnet)

Working Man

I’m a working class bloke with a working class wife
I’m poor but they tell me “At least you’re white,
though you’re gonna be working for the rest of yer life,
by the grace of the great bloke god, she’ll be right”.
At sixty-five, they used to retire workers like me,
Now the bosses bleed us till we’re worn out and drop,
We’ll get ours in heaven, a pension we’ll never see
and the toffs whoop it up and scoff the lot.
Sleazy Scummo’s in clover, doing us over,
“No pasaran”, we cry, defying our fates
while we hold picket lines, sisters and brothers,
he mainlines to god, filling pockets of mates.
“Be your own revolution”, scream greedy bourgeoisie,
Yet we workers win over wankers in solidarity.

Jinjirrie, January 2021

Elegy for 2020

Elegy for 2020

Deep Freeze

It’s been a cold hell of a year
Fight, flight and frozen in fear
Plague, poverty and white people’s tears
Bearing uncertainty with desperate cheer.

Conspiracies bloom on glacial ground
Trumpolini clings to his imperial crown
The old white bois club still runs the town
Profits gush upward, never down.

The new normal is just surviving the vice
Clamping the heart, pounding in ice
In isolation, writing poems suffice
The mental equivalent of lentils and rice.

Empire’s targets are used to this stuff
Not knowing if US threats are a bluff
The club must fall, enough is enough
Never give in, never give up.

Jinjirrie, November 2020

Song for the Old White Bois’ Club

Scummo Lake

BONKARAMA CANBERRA

Don’t step out of line, girly,
I’ll run me blokey hormones all over yer,
You’re a cute little blonde from the junior staff
and you’re gonna learn who’s boss round here.

It’s Canberra bonkarama,
where men are men and run the show,
Put on your glad rags and take my arm
or your career will have to go.

CHORUS:

Bonkarama, Canberra
Bonkarama, Canberra
Where men are serious
and women are nervous.
Bonkarama, Canberra
Bonkarama, Canberra
There’s sexual potential
in the power differential,
It’s just good old human frailty
To lech after female beauty,
You can trust our daggy leader
whatever crap he feeds yer,
Bonkarama, Canberra
Bonkarama, Canberra.

Jinjirrie, November 2020

Related Links

Inside the Canberra bubble: Liberal ministers’ relationships with staffers prompted ‘bonk ban’

Christian Porter was warned over public behaviour with young female staffer by then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull


The Canberra bubble investigation points to an underlying problem we seem to see over and over again
Michael Pascoe: Hypocrisy and smokescreens cloud the ‘Canberra Bubble’
Ghosts of the past come back to haunt PM
A former staffer for Liberal frontbencher Alan Tudge has claimed she felt “belittled” and “bullied” by him and wants the PM to investigate.

Exit Mango Turtle Right?

Mango Turtle

Let me count the ways

all the amerikkkan beauties,
these squawling babies
wailing and whining
for the mango trumpolini,
detachable dicks prickling
on the streets howling –
who gave guns to infants
to spray shit on the wall
when they don’t get their
caterwauling way?
was it the walrus,
the pet goat,
the cat in the hat,
the goose or the gander,
thomas the tank engine
chugging across the
privatised stolen land of oz,
humpty trumpty or huck finn,
tweedle dum or tweedle dee?
pulitzer or pulling yourself?
the people can take back
the profits of their labour
from the profiteers
of the animal farm
only when the swaddling twaddle
is ripped away,
coo coo achoooo!

Jinjirrie, November 2020

Trump thinks he won

November 8, 2020

Trumpolini clings to his throne
Like a dog with a juicy bone,
Soon in a cell he’ll be alone,
His official protection blown.

Jinjirrie, November 2020

#ConcedeTrump

There once was a man who wouldn’t concede,
Narcissism wreaks ironic hubris,
So they’ll recount the vote till all agree
Trump’s the whiniest loser in US history.

Jinjirrie, November 2020

Yeah Right, Pull the Other One aka Open Proxies

Blame Russia, China and Iran,
Scapegoats for a convenient
Trumpolini election scam,
Banking on collective narcissism
Of a rotting, desperate empire
in the final stages of disintegration.

Jinjirrie, November 2020

#BonkBan

#ScottytheBully is the epitome of misogyny,
Interrupts and wanks over Ruston casually,
Dismissing exploitative front bench lechery,
And the culture of sexism endemic in the LNP.

Jinjirrie, November 2020

Related

Deep Within a Journalistic Silo
It’s only taken 6 years for journalists to discuss this.

NB Edit to Humpty Trumpty in ‘Let me count the ways’ snitched from Phillip Adams
Scummo interrupts Anne Ruston