AUSTRALIA 11

Because of overwhelming demand I hereby place my poem Australia 11 here for all to see.

 

AUSTRALIA TWO

That September when we watched the sleek-hulled pride of Australia

Humble the Yanks and make Connor a failure

How our voices rose as one cross the breadth of a nation

Cans zipped, stubbies sipped, champagne corks popped in celebration

 

But as our first minister luridly dressed, blest the quest and its happy completion

We felt the deflation the frustration that we could not grant this joy its true consummation.

Then into this tempest of despair blew a positive air: somewhere in our midst was the object, the vessel, the sacred ship.

A prize for the man who followed it through

He’d win the hand of Australia 2

 

Like water through a holed hull we gushed

I and ten thousand others joining the crush

As we scanned for a sign of that virgin yacht

From harbour to sandhill to city block

 

Till by fate was I led to a revelling bar

Where big bosomed women with thighs ajar

Swung upside down singing national songs

Wearing naught but spangly bikinis and thongs.

 

One former flapper, floppy and fat

Conducted the choir with Bradman’s bat

Sailors, salesmen, welders and builders

Turned red noses skywards sung Waltzing Matilda

Eagerly straining with the rivers of piss

That flowed earthwards from these harpies’ lips

And it marked as a man he who could catch

In his mouth the stream that flowed from their thatch

 

Drunk on this communal brew I turned I froze I examined the mirror

That held the visage of the marine Madonna, serenely sipping slipped away from her crew

I sidled up to Australia 2

 

Her sleek skin gleamed with a radiant glow

And her fair hair shone on its Kevlar bows

She asked me how did I find her?

Dropped a shoulder revealing a starboard grinder

I trembling, around it placed my hand

Felt her ballast shift, YES, I was the man

The fortunate, chosen one privileged one who

Would join the loins of Australia 2

With the spirited gum of his personal glue.

 

She heeled pointing high I kissed he salt face

She invited me to a percolated coffee at he rplace

Well, what a monument to national fervour

From the white-gum chairs to the kangaroo berber

Men at Work on the stereo Mike Walsh on the ceiling

Authentic sunburned coloured walls zinc-creamed and self peeling

Colonnades shaped like Bondi lifesavers

Supporting a cupola with a mural of Laver

Nolan sketches Bert Bryant tips ripped and trapped in the floorboards

Each etched with the features of a true Aussie warlord

Gumless Graham, sleeveless Hoges, Gormless Gunston

And in the wardrobe Lillee’s sweat-caked headband,

Molly’s head band’s head job

Snapped freeze-framed behind Newcomb’s winning Wimbledon lob

To a soft lit chamber was I led

 

 

And placed in a beer bottle shaped water bed

Where beneath the doona from Koala Blue

I fondled the stern of Australia 2

 

Ah, ecstasy words cannot grasp

The pleasures my hands did when they held the brass

Of my sweet sensitive companion’s

Glamorous, glabrous, stays and stanchions

My fingers crawled up inside her spinnaker unfastened the kite

Held fast I my lips to the precious ship’s side

And my loins surged

There was but one space to conquer

She read my thoughts swayed and weighed anchor

She presented it to me, she coyly revealed

The mystic, magnificent, wings of her keel.

 

 

What had taken Ben Lexen so long to originate

I strove and drove and thrust to invaginate

To me had fallen the task to anoint

That arcane perfect pleasure point

And though sharp polyps slashed at my genitals

Yet I would not halt my nuptial ritual

And no barnacled bar would prevent me anew

From repeating that beat with Australia 2

No I could not resist the wooing and wedding

The kissing and cuddling the crewing and bedding

And no barnacled bar would prevent me anew

From repeating that beat with Australia 2

For I fastened my name to history with glue

The night I  f*****d  Australia 2.