I Was Attacked By A Bush Poet!

Here's an old poem that I've just put this here for Wednesday Kennedy in response to an on her blog at http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=149802788&blogID=280206981&MyToken=5b9b6d02-01a8-4216-8dc2-71f48d589800

It's a true story incidentally.

I Was Attacked By A Bush Poet.

I was attacked by a Bush Poet it's true; he looked like a rabid Orson Welles

as his porky fist popped buttons off my collar & his face grew pink as a dingo’s bits on heat.

Yeah, I was attacked by a Bush Poet at the peak of a Spring Writer's Festival

after consuming the sponsor's fluids in the stale starchy air of the poetry marquee.

The gaggle of poets had gathered around to do what they did best; compete,

for a minuscule monetary prize,

and a rare shot in the bloated blue veins of their egos of the finest uncut kudos.

And then I was attacked by a Bush Poet,

sure, some would say I was asking for it

with my smart-ass dago mouth and threads and my 'Stop Jabiluka' badge.

I'd actually quite liked his verse;

a mild departure from the Lawson like rants about

horses and hills and sunburnt bullock trains,

and hard blokie homo-erotic fantasies about raping the land for a Queen -

all as alien to my existence as that sad Union Jack in our flag.

So I congratulated him, sincerely if not soberly,

as he pulled back his Akubra scalp

and continued to guzzle at the barrel of Guiness which explained his stout physique.

As his bloated face came down all that he seemed to notice

was the bold black and gold of that Jabiluka badge pinned to the rim of my ethnic leather

and so he began a tirade supporting uranium and sprouting mad Menzies wisdom.

Naturally, I didn't agree.

In fact, I'd just come from the ERA embassy,

and heard of the ferals risking their lives against the dumb ugly evil of Darwin police.

What I actually said to him is beyond me,

but I'm sure it was delivered with the silk like bite of a polite chardonnay

and an accenting flick of the wrist.

Then it happened; his porky fist flying towards my collar like a logger on acid,

then pulling it towards his plump matronly features as he began to bellow;

"You macchiato sipping inner city smart asses,

you dole bludging, drug addled, commie, hippie, poofter, scum.

Pauline’s right; you should all be gassed, you Greenie Wog Asian Jew Blacks."

All around me writers turned, poets even halted tugging dumbly at their drinks

and sat silently in the amphetamine air of violence awaiting my baited reaction.

Now, I'm a runner not a fighter

and while I'm not averse to thrusting the blade of a sarcastic word

into the Achilles heel of an enemy's sole,

I've never been in a fight in my life and I plan to keep it that way.

Like Ghandi said, You can't fight fire with fire, only water.

So responding in kind to his primate violence was never in the equation.

Besides, I'm a card carrying coward, and for all I knew, this yob wrestled crocs

and I couldn't fight my way out of a yeeros bag.

So in the end all I could to do was wave my hands in the air

and place my fingers in victory as I began to recite John Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance".

Before long the pacifistic logic of the lyrics

caused the old bush bard to have a cerebral haemorrhage

and begin to fall t'wards the floor like a hard wood

only to be caught by his ‘mates’ and dragged quivering to the tune of "God Save The Queen"

into the annals of history

(where, some would say, he belonged.)

©Benito Di Fonzo. Oct, 1998.