A Caricature

Clerihew for that Surfin' Fella

TIM WINTON

Aussies, never known for their sense of shame,
Seem only too happy to shift the blame
For the sins of kith and kin on
Tim Winton.

A Caricature

Clerihew for the Colonial Dead

RICHARD FLANAGAN

The kind of shenanigans
Got up to in Flanagan's
Wanting
Make travel sound... daunting.

A Caricature

A Caricature

A Caricature

Long-Term Clerihew

PATRICK WHITE

Late at night
Patrick White,
Felt less bleak
In the Greek.

A Caricature

Clerihew for Dear Letty

CHRISTINA STEAD

Perhaps too long abed,
The late Christina Stead
Left the censors thunderstruck
By the sex in Letty Fox: Her Luck.*

*The book was once considered low
For all the men she gave a go,
Though no reader now would so be struck.
(Pray note the obvious rhyme I duck.)

A Caricature

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson

EASY

"It is amazingly easy in Australia to forget, or at least to reduce to a dim awareness, that there is a world out there."

From Chapter 12

Daily Dose

From The Works of "Banjo" Paterson, edited by Andrew Barton Paterson

FROGS IN CHORUS

The chorus frogs in the big lagoon
Would sing their songs to the silvery moon.
Tenor singers were out of place,
For every frog was a double bass.
But never a human chorus yet
Could beat the accurate time they set.
The solo singer began the joke;
He sang, "As long as I live I'll croak,
Croak, I'll croak,"
And the chorus followed him: "Croak, croak, croak!"

The poet frog, in his plaintive tone,
Sang of a sorrow was all his own;
"How shall I win to my heart's desire?
How shall I feel my spirit's fire?"
And the solo frog in his deepest croak,
"To fire your spirit," he sang, "eat coke,
Coke, eat coke,"
And the chorus followed him: "Coke, coke, coke!"

The green frog sat in a swampy spot
And he sang the song of he knew not what.
"The world is rotten, oh cursed plight,
That I am the frog that must set it right.
How shall I scatter the shades that lurk?"
And the old man bullfrog sang, "Get work,
Work, get work,"
And the chorus followed him: "Work, work, work!"

The soaring spirits that fain would fly
On wings of hope to the starry sky
Must face the snarls of the jealous dogs,
For the world is ruled by its chorus frogs.

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Taller When Prone: Poems, by Les Murray

AT THE OPERA

Twitching the curtain aside
reveals an ebullition of talk
including the word lorgnette
which I thought
had faded before I was born yet.