The dingo and the moon

Content warning for the sensitive. Strong language and images. I wrote this piece at some time during the 1970’s, when I was clearly an angry young man, and only recently re-discovered a hand-written version. At about the same time I discovered the Ship Street Poetry site, which encourages freedom of expression using whatever language you choose. This poem has been accepted for the Ship Street Poetry Anthology Collection Volume 1 – Rise Up Rabid Souls, to be published soon.

The dingo is lost in his own country

and fears for his soul.

He’s seen the City, ravaged by bitumen pricks

forcing their way through protesting labia,

ejaculating their steel sperm into a barren womb.

And in the evening,

unrequited semen trickling down the thighs of suburbia

and dying in front of the television.

He’s seen the Suburb, where builder lies with labour

and the fruit of the union has neon eyes,

a glass stomach, ringing in its ears

and a heart on special all this week.

And in the evening,

he’s seen it suckled by a bank wet-nurse,

have its bum wiped, its teeth cleaned and sharpened

and put to bed with the light on.

He’s seen the Fringe, where the upwardly mobile

engage in sensual massage

of tumescent egos and everyone loves

everyone else’s income.

And he’s seen them relate to trees, clay, Volvos

and white-fenced, five-acre environments.

In the evening,

he’s seen them shit in the creek

and piss in the wind.

He’s seen the Country, where, like dinosaurs,

the bigger they come, the smaller the brain.

Here and there, the occasional pygmy

(dodging hob-nailed jackboots)

makes passionate but tender love

to a soiled pocket handkerchief.

In the evening,

he’s seen the pygmies trade recipes for dinosaur meat.

The dingo,

(an outlaw in the Country,

a freak in the Suburb,

a pretender in the Fringes)

fearing extinction by indecision.

In the evening, he looks to the moon,

for an answer.