The sense-data form a trompe-l'oeil landscape
at the garden-show where heavy farm equipment
and synthetic fertilisers steal the crowd's
lurid applause, the sky pouring
like kerosene through a funnel that sucks you in
to the semi-transparent, blue and slow-burning world
of the Favourites, who caused everything to be made
out of such volatile liquid in the first place:
you'd have to go back to Boxing Day 1993
for the last occasion they lost to
you at home; still, there's hope in the form
of your fresh Brazilian signing: it's he who'll provide
that much-needed creativity up front,
wearing his lucky amulet whose uncanny
geometrical design would baffle
this planet's anthropologists.
                                                    To be sure,
The albatross can sleep while pinioned
over the Atlantic; but what about us,
whose wingspan is less, and more metaphorical
in kind? And is that way of life
really more interesting than gliding
downhill on outstretched arms over unpaved roads, taking
the occasional interstate jaunt to visit
one's relatives in a town where
a new shopping centre is being planned, the library's
collection all packed up and ready to move
from the old town hall and into new
custom-built premises? There the sky
meets the earth's lip the way a glass saucepan lid
rests in its groove, steaming up with the ambience
of missed employment opportunities
as we kick the ball around
in the sand-pit the builders left; inside,
the handle melting off the saucepan.