Friday 6 September 2013

Poem for the forthcoming Australian Federal Election: "The Carnival" by William Esther Williams (via John Clarke, humourist)



THE CARNIVAL

Why is it that every year
On remote coastlines
Labour leaders
Beach themselves?
Whole schools of them, 
Apparently healthy Labour leaders
Thousands of miles off course and stranded, 
Spume drifting from their tragic holes. 

Why do they do it?
Is it not knowing where they are going?
Or is it guilt over where they have been?
There is no more futile prospect in nature
Than ordinary folk with flippers and buckets
Working urgently in the deepness of the shore
To turn the stricken Labour leaders around
Before nightfall. 

     -- William Esther Williams


Another John Clarke gem from the Even More Complete Book of Australian Verse in honour of the forthcoming Australian election which seems to be shaping up as a contest between a party who hates its leader and a party whose leader can't keep his clothes on.



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