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ARTS AND CULTURE

Olympics silver whining

  • 07 August 2012

Olympics 2012

Our species believes it progresses without limitationOffer coaches more moneyWe shout when a swimmer wins silver     that's no inspiration

Our consumption of carbon turns climate to high agitationIt's too hot and sunnyWe complain as we gobble more fuel     without limitation

We want it all faster we scream at computerisationThis program's not funnyWe shout as we wait    modem struggling without inspiration

Long essays aren't worthy of effort in their compilationTwitter leaps like a bunnyWe'll get there before we can start    without limitation

We'll leave this poor planet    too messy for our habitationOur toast needs more honeyNew fields are required for our plunder and fresh inspiration

Our species might pause but    no worries    there'll be good mutationWaste goes down the dunnyAs humans pound forward    no burden of care limitationWe deserve only winners    our species    the sole inspiration

Jill Sutton

 

At the Olympics

At the Sydney Olympics we sat and watched the crowd.At one final down thirty rows in front and to the right of us there wasa young woman, who was dressed as a cheerleaderwith two great big green and gold pom poms,and whenever the music startedshe would stand up and do someelaborately rehearsed routine, waving the pom poms aboutin front of the people in front of her.She would look up at the big video screenand if she wasn't on it she would stop dancing and sit down.Now, of course, I know what she went to the Olympics to see,and what we saw at the Olympics.

Mark Carkeet

 

Sun rituals

Surging, thudding,blood-in-head alchemy;dreams are thoughts.Stale, yellowing actions?Best intended evasions?Half-life memories.Pounding, rolling wavesof foam lubricate skin,blades sever follicles.Streaming, pulsing on skin,bone, sudsoapscleanse the shell;distant kettles sound.China, tectonic, shifts.Hydrogenated oxygen spillscascading, revelling incaffeinated sludge.Kind cups guard thesleepdrivers' odyssey.Cards flash, portals acquiese,machines print, copy,hold us, baying,fingers claw at wordspassed, past and recalled.Electrons dance. Flee.Communing with nature'sbastard children; facesof long ago, spaces claimed.Cyberdunked into connectionslacking soul. Light. Touchbereft of human ichor.Medea's enchanting revengegains fresh blood. Poisoned giftsintimate satiation's lure:fulfillment, hope, unity.We're left grasping. 

Barry Gittins