Kit Kelen #189 - Little Johnnie Howard

189

Little Johnnie Howard

in my dream

I am lecturing John Howard

and he is bound to hear

war criminal

hear myself nagging

and I like the sound

by what right

do you wreck their world?

by what right

make us all less safe?

little worm of a man

little hearted

little slug

so smug

so cunning

drainpipe rat

always out of harm's way

my turn now

it's not that he's tied to the chair

I don't have a rubber hose

but he has to listen

it's all in the rules of the dream

still he seems uncomprehending

throwback

dinosaur brain

so with-himself pleased

shaved off the whiskers

still he's all rat

where he's not worm

so many things are his fault

so many bad deeds

and worse intentions

didn't he do a job on us

mean, mean, mean

his dream for Australia

take the colour away

he made Pauline Hansen

she sprang fully armed

from his nethermost thoughts

he drowned the babies

he threw them overboard

he has made us much worse

made money the all-measure

made us to have business numbers

we were happy whistling

and he made us all count

beyond fingers and toes

look over the fence

have we more?

have we less?

grow the economy

grow the house

let's be some cancerous growth

see how he torments the children still

see how he trips up the lame and the old

mean little man

little hearted

no soul

in my dream

I am telling him all this

how much less he made us

the little rodent man

all scurry

the no-target

cheese-nibbler

inheritor of conquests

of denial

look at him

with his column of figures

how high can the little turd go?

how much of our substance can he salt away?

have it all valued

then we'll all know

hates a painting

hates a story

hates it when the music plays

all those words

hidden under his breath

cleanshaven

but the eyebrows

grow over him

they are the burning bush

of his Bible

the bigot's still under there

nice suit

he was made to our measure

the worse for the world to show

are our hearts so dark?

surely we're better?

somebody voted this in

he is pollution on Hawks Nest Beach

keep Tea Gardens clear of him

he is the tablet bearer

of Tories

he made us forget

who we are

could be

worse than Menzies

he had no excuse

he drowned the babies

he threw them overboard

he ate them

he still drinks their blood

poetry will not do him justice

we need a Royal Commission

so middle class

so nice, so white

scratch under for the savage heart

and rub the Gollum tum

his precious

three million kilometers square

all stolen and he won't say sorry

little man

made all of us smaller

mean, mean, mean

he set us back

a long long way

grub

he threw the truth overboard

he is the great Galipoliser

grumpy old fuck

makes sure nothing's fair

I look into his eyes

dementia

we get the kind we've earned

all that he worked so hard to forget

the how-we're-here and who-we-can-be

he won't be forgotten

we stick him on a wall

a stamp

he's the obverse of our coin

our hero-king

let's have a statue

lying little man

meek emperor

so lean with his cannibal vittles

how's his by-pass now?

like Pierce escaping from Port Arthur

waving the boat down

with some limbs of his comrades

as yet unconsumed

does he have friends?

cannibal king

starver of Wollstonecraft cats

exaggerator of fears

misery maker

hater disguised

makes Malcolm Fraser a saint

Scroogest of all prime monsters

yes they're coming

to rob us

to take all we have

in the night

to take us

they have the weapons

of mass destruction

things we dream

are far past reason

things we do and say

o it's dark

when you've forbidden ideas

dark all the way back to your childhood

but we're all white as bread

God save the Queen!

Long live the Queen!

that sunshine yellows the end of the tunnel

as if day would catch fire

he's the rabbit in the headlights

apoplectic with fear

our fears

the blacks

they're going to bail us up

the shanty edge of our hearts is rising

comes at us with tin for the sun

and the Arabs

forget China – they're buying

better form the wagons in a circle

good thing we have powerful friends

and buy the ranch next door

meek monster

ever so certain seeming

though it won't be enough

hear this, little creep

your nemesis is poetry

the worm turns

is there forgiveness

can I give him

the big smoochy dogslobber?

I am his judge

I put on the black rag

I stare into his blinking doubts

just a dream

just a dream

o it's fun to catch him like this