Unmanned | Page 2

well-wishers. Richard Burton?tracked the source back to Lake?Victoria, and back again to the Royal?Geographical Society; no gushing?waters from the cleft rock, only lameness,?fever under the rays of the Sun God, Ra.
7. Down By The Station
Indecision. Doubt. A bungled?liftoff, the bumpy landing. Of course,?the forest dwellers who continuously?run at you from tangled undergrowth?onto the stubbled airstrip, dreamlike,?dont make it: LAST CANNIBAL WORLD:?lithe tribal girl hand jobs hero through?bamboo cage. The spiked wooden ball?swishes from tree canopy to impale?support cast. Sunday matinee in country?town. Farm boys lope under dirty clouds?to crop-dusted paddocks, and water?slips by the BP Service Station, somewhere.
8. Continental Shelf Co.
I officially declare the millennial?Poets Symposium on the Age of Inner?Space now open: Welcome to OCEANISM.?Poets are required to be proficient?in submarine mythology of an exploratory?and Cousteauesque manner, able to?identify myriad life-forms luminescent yet?undiscovered (except, perhaps, for the?Vampire Squid) at depths unsounded, in?sea trenches unknown, free, hopefully of?maritime wrecks & missiles from any epoch;?whose task it is to float lines at once?filigreed as plankton, filtered as sunlight.
9. Three Cheers The Militia!
What plays us back - death? That?this worlds a stage and we upon it act?to revolve the scenery with our yearning:?and while the syrinx play, panic rebounds?to the dead cry: ET IN ARCADIA EGO?from the walled garden and far wilderness.?O desert! O armour-plated sun!?Under a scornful wind the madmen bellow?and tribes cower amongst the rubble,?caught in the sound bites & grabs of war:?Tibet, Chechnya, Kurdistan, Iraq, Burundi,?plus the boys in the hills back of Montana.
10. Video Conference
Like a hurried geology that?arose out off glasshouses came the?skyscrapers; meanwhile, History?cut a swathe through the Natural World?and architecture strove to regain it.?Lost to the familiar, Age moved us?out of living memory, unlike those tribes,?the autochthons who saw the earths?infancy still. Let us go, you & I,?to re-invent the damage and call it?discovery, to uniformly lift up our cry?in schadenfreude, meek before Great Cities?that bend as fenders to the glare.
11. Crow Country
A field of wheat, a paddock of?stubble, the chafed dust-cloud staggers?the pick-up at distance, the Rock?of Ages rises over Plainville: pop:?dead serious. No hermits, only?the bowing pumps facing west for oil.?Family photos hang easy next to?the semiautomatic in each clapboard.?The Long Horn Saloon boasts the?one rule: NO SPITTING. NO STRANGERS.?The hard hats passed round every?Sunday and the big fists knuckle under?prayer & flag real righteous like.
12. Hills Of Home
Greywacke mostly, & fat pale?clay where I troubled the hills about?Wellington (Brooklyn-west) that?you dug through to reach China as a?kid out-the-back of our place.?The gorse gully and yellow flowers,?black seed-pods bursting in the summer?heat. Down you went past broken?bottled glass to the untouched cool?clay hoping any moment to pot hole up?into a paddy field through the?earths centre. Every failed dig?stayed a secret from adults, forever.
13. Eco-Tourism
Welcome to Smeltback Inc.?copper, zinc, lead, uranium, iron,?O mineral gardens of the Inland Sea!?A company satellite tremulous as?a divining-rod maps onto flow charts?corporate terrain; prospectus?for all the kingdoms of the earth.?Radio Redneck pumps the poet?who banks safe on a right-wing bet,?steadies to subvert the norm?for God and Clever Countrys sake.?Prettily thus he underbends the knee?to throw his best foot forward O.
Generation of 68
Frank OHara (here Im skating slow?on sacred ice) has got a lot to answer?for, yet who hasnt? Take the legacy?of 60s poets, for example, who cant?help but write like him; syntactically?careering around his blizzard of words,?elbow-jolting crazily, clutching at?each others earmuffs, buttonholing?opportunity. Seems they did that as?par for the course till it got too dizzy.?Round and round the freedom rink they?went & those who zigzagged quick & cut?up rough fell back upon the railings?youth exhausted to exhale worn, cautious?success though tried not to show it.?What happened to the stragglers in the?maul is anyones guess; some unmarried,?a good number courted hardship whatever.?Nobody cares overly much. The 60s poets?they go on to write like Frank OHara:?fewer drop-by parties, meaner somehow.
Pat Boone & Tonto
White-shirted (not blue)?they approach in twos:?Excuse me Sir, a small?moment of your time??Soft-selling eternity &?the clean-cut hereafter.?The boyish accent downloads?the serious side of the?American dream, eyes fixed?computer bright. The other?is slower, slope-shouldered?& discipled, backgrounded?by a blandished brain.?As a child, when the God?was always friendly,?big as a house, long as a?street & the day endless,?the knock upon the door?signalled: Excuse me?young man, is the lady of?the house in? Welcome?the suitcased salesman; the?Bon-Brush Man: big-bristled,?wooden-backed scrubbing?& bottle brushes, sandsoap?& Brasso for hard domestic?usage. Not now. These two?modern peddlers head out?to the brick bungalows of?the inner city suburbs?selling the Light & the Way,?galloping round the outer?handicapped districts;?brainwashed right-wing angels?confident as professional?sportsmen on a World Tour.
To Talk of Flags
The flags fall like large, hollow,?monochrome leaves, said Ritsos, but?this isnt Greece. How can you talk of?changing flags as blithely as you?would a marriage? When we fly the flag?its as label to proclaim attitude,?and rightly so, too: the Remembrance?Day Parades, Expansionism, other?peoples wars; the main street of every?country town at the dying of day