WIRTSCHAFTSWUNDER DAY, an excerpt...

 

The President practiced his speech one last time, while
watching his reflection in the double doors that would soon
open for him to proceed onto the steps of the Sunshine Circus.
Peeping through a gap in the drapes, President Ongresowa saw
that the citizens of Luckycola were gathered expectantly in the
square. Pulling his stomach in and tightening his belt, he stepped
out through the double doors, followed by the Parliamentarians
and the upper echelons of the military. He lifted his right arm to
quell a wave of murmuring and whispering that suddenly rushed
through the crowd.

‘People of the country of Incognita,’ he began. High above
the square, Berisha Begari looked down from his perch two
hundred metres above the cupola of the Sunshine Circus.
‘People of Incognita,’ the President repeated, suddenly made
uneasy by the eerie stillness that now emanated from the 

enormous crowd.
‘I am your father,’ the President proceeded, suddenly unable
to remember his prepared speech. ‘You are my children, and,
like a good father, it is my sacred duty to protect my family
from the Outsiders.’
The President stopped and waited. Usually, the word ‘Outsiders’ 

was a trigger for uproarious cheering and applause. This

year, the President found himself gulping and running a finger
around inside his collar, which suddenly felt too tight. The
President cleared his throat.
‘ . . . from the Outsiders,’ he repeated.
At last, someone in the front of the crowd raised an arm, and
the President prepared himself for a cry of patriotism and
nationalistic punching of the air. However, the cry that issued
from the citizen was not Hurray for the President!, but a timid
Boo! that echoed from one side of the square to the other, and
was accompanied by the unexpected landing of an ovoid missile
at the President’s feet.
Before the Riot Police could intervene, an avalanche of offensive 

missiles had been launched from the sleeves and the pockets
of the people of Incognita. The crowd surged forward as one,
and the Riot Police ordered their Border Monkeys to disperse
the yelling and enraged crowd. However, the Border Monkeys
would not move, transfixed, as they were, by a white gorilla that
had waddled to the steps of the Sunshine Circus and shoved the
President out of centre stage.
No one knew what language it was that Snowflake the White
Gorilla spoke to the Border Monkeys. Some said, later, that he
had spoken to them of the dignity and pride in being a wild
monkey, and the shame and despair of being man’s servant.
Whatever it was that the white gorilla said, it was enough to
persuade the Border Monkeys to restrain their partners from
intervening in the mêlée. Just when the President thought that
the situation could not get worse, two or three hundred Outsiders 

marched on the square, followed by thousands of limping
ranks of geese, ducks, hens and turkeys. 

 

Feedback from Pete Hay in response to my poem, Drum...

 I think this is beautiful. It captures the 'love it and hate it' confusion even we fiercest of island patriots possess. And as for the power in the closing stanzas - absolutely unforgettable.

DRUM

These are my familiars:

a white gum veiled in a weaving of shadow,

stringy trunks leaning, one hip pushed to the side

as though an infant might be perched on each bulge.

*

I have lived here, in another lifetime.

Anorexic gums line the road,

reminding me of strangers’ funerals

when I was young.

*

Wattles have cropped up like weeds, as they always do.

A young pine forest, three power lines, arsenic posts.

Someone has written DRUM on the Pass Cyclists Safely sign,

and a No Trespassing addendum warns of 24 hour surveillance-

*

it is like a post-modern Lord’s Prayer.

I once camped in bush like this, but can’t imagine,

these days, setting up a tent amongst the trees.

I was twenty. Such things were possible- though,

*

even then, a murderer lurked behind every tree.

I wonder if newcomers sense it? the murderous intent?

the psycho-pathology of barbed wire fences?

the inanity of graffiti’d messages that mean nothing?

*

Clouds trundle overhead,

closing in the afternoon.

There is something sinister in this island.

We don’t belong.

Note: Pete Hay: These days, [though], Hay prefers to write in more creative modes. He has published six volumes of poetry; one of these as editor, and one, Last Days of the Mill, in collaboration with a visual artist (this book won the People’s Choice Award at the 2013 Tasmanian Book Prize). His most recent books of poetry are Girl Reading Lorca (Picaro, 2015) and Physick (Shoestring, 3016). He also writes personal essays (collected in 2002 as Vandiemonian Essays, with a second volume planned for 2017), commentary (including a stint as a newspaper columnist), and history.