A cardboard mock-up of the grassy knoll
And route markers along a Dallas road
Is an odd toy for a child,
especially in 1970s Australia.
Little wonder I graduated to 10 Days that Shook the World and Huis Clos at 14.
Even less that Seymour Hirsh and Da Nang haunted my university days.
How I wanted to be a flaneur or drink absinthe in some bar with Rimbaud.
How I wanted to raise the pentagon with Albie and Allen.
How we devoured Orton’s diaries.
Notice they’re all men.
Doesn’t take long before it all adds up
and I want to be them, fuck them, write about them.
If politics and power is where it’s at,
then let me at it.
Anyone still wondering why we’re all obsessed
with Tilly Devine and Phryne Fisher and the Sydney Push,
so hungry for our own stories of an Australia
that wasn’t all drovers and dirt,
that had a bit of swagger and class?