#1676 - a shout out to the hundreds

 

1676

5.215

3.viii.24

a shout out to the hundreds

who didn’t make the podium finish this time

(and whom the Hunter Writers’ Centre should thank

for the roughly $28,000 in entry fees)

 

 

you, the unknown, the unnamed

 

you know who you are

 

many of us know

 

we are in fairly regular correspondence

read to each other and sometimes with

 

I dips me lid

this is a thank you

 

to all of those who make the stuff

who read

 

you are my community!

 

not to the poetasters

though they would worship at our shrine

if only they could find it

 

(democracy’s an end game

 

there is a gate to keep)

 

no, my nod is to the many

who know how

who have read to be where they are

 

who bought a ticket this time

for the lottery of taste

lucked out

 

we must acknowledge luck!

 

I think there are about five hundred of us

 

brave smiths of image in the word

of truths

true makers

 

this poetry nobility of Australia!

(not that a border should matter a whit)

 

the ones who give a life, more or less

I mean

 

to say what needs said

and no one did before

 

I hear a giggle

 

you’d think everything would have been said by this time

not so for magicians

 

give us the minute’s silence

we’ll fill it

 

all new material

perhaps the odd party piece

 

hours and years go into that moment

 

it would be nice to guess the extent of the labours

a prize like this represents

 

forget the training …I just mean the hours

that went into making what was actually submitted –

hours per poem times eight hundred

 

like a parliament at work

let’s say tens and tens of thousands of hours

 

committees hived off back of the head

and a memo spent

the ages proofing

 

for what respect?

in this desert, ours?

 

and what wage awarded?

 

we, the legislators, long since expelled

doomed for a certain time to tread

this wilderness of footy, cricket

 

it’s often we don’t get to the page

not even in our own book

not even with a pencil

 

still, every day do what we must

 

we could have been whingeing along

 

we made poems!

made paintings!

made songs!

 

it’s a fucking halo we deserve!

where is it?

 

I suppose I should have made this next year’s entry

but wot-the-hell, we’re here

 

there’s a dance in the old dame yet

 

and I pause now

to honour you

Noble 500!

 

who take a tide of mind

by whim

 

wit sparklers

delvers under, in

 

dreamers of the big fat truth

unveilers of snide lie

 

we persist

grin, bare, go on

 

and why?

 

is poetry a war?

but the fallen are legion!

do we win or lose?

 

the glittering crown is tinsel, fluff

not worth the poem to which it’s pledged

the gallery, far from awestruck

let it go over their heads

 

chuckle on with their ‘real world’ in the cave

smile and smile

 

remember – all audiences are hostile

and no two are the same

 

it’s best to note the exits

and the jacket under your seat

 

those slides look like a lot of fun

must remember to remove the heels

 

champagne and nibblies at the event

 

yes, we are always remaking the map

 

fall to rise and rise to fall

 

you, my Noble 500

are the unknown athletes of poetry

some destined for the harbour’s bottom

 

congratulations on passing your own test

on the moment of humility –

act of submission to the unknown

(the gods as frail, as fickle, as we

in fact, of course, they’re ours)

 

and whether there or not

I know you gave your all

 

that there were other things you could have been doing

probably people were shouting at you

telling you what for

and where’s my dinner?

pick up the kids!

 

but you were making a world

with your words

 

you had to shut another out

it was a deliberate thing

 

it took your skill

your knack with time

 

it’s those of you neglected this round

 

are most in my thoughts today

I thank you for hidden gift

 

I look yet to see it shine

 

sky’s full

we’re still pinning up stars