Let’s paint the ideal supper on the back of
our heads where the poem is a type of hole
rope tricks and grit allow you to descend—

we hope the earth has a centre, a fruity niche
safe from the spiked shoes of the mob; when
you cross to the pub
millions of hopeful athletes knock you over.

Can you feel their lurid needs, now that
the speed of light’s become obsolete, now
the plankton is arising towards the oven?

Where did you get that hat, Tarzan? Like miners
caught in a war of time capsules we quail
before your green fedora, your dreams.

Their glycerine slowly covers Mt Everest
& without peaks, how will the survivors
invent a language? Oral hygiene be with us now & defend!

So polish your neglect of tennis, for soon
even casual knacks will yellow with nostalgia,
like the bandwagon of heaven’s favourites

or nicknaming your emotions. Otherwise invest
in dilemmas: the better you forget the days of jam
the more relics will surprise you.

Still, after the Age of The Opposable Thumb there’ll
be a lot to discover—will dolphins enjoy bingo?
Were the great comic operas written in perfect order?

© 2002, Michael Forbes
From: Collected Poems: 1970-1998
Publisher: Brandl & Schlesinger, Sydney, 2002
ISBN: 1876040270