Friday, September 30, 2016

Robert Verdon, #314, National Museum, Canberra


politely perusing

old notebooks

legible handwriting from 1938

caplocked muskets, fixed bayonets

that helped to conquer

perhaps even on this contested site

memories of the old hospital they 9/11ed

in a lethal celebration of free enterprise

bell-shaped dresses from the 1840s

muslin and army uniforms

telescopes and coolamons

and Lenie Namatjira

Captain Cook’s discarded cannon that they cleaned up

a Hmong family garden near Melbourne

the Griffins and a platypus

and things from my youth

this is time and horror

and science and art wasted

as they, the practical, go about the business

of business

6 comments:

  1. nice one, that crazy collection of stuff! Telescopes and coolamons

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  2. Love your collection of collectables - the sense of it not making sense? Were you not impressed?

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  3. somehow (and maybe it was me) the exhibits all seemed to point in different directions, if I can put it like that.

    thanks Anna, Lizz :)

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  4. Good one, Robbie. I like seeing 9/11 used as a verb.

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  5. Ha. The squirrels of capitalism, they collect things.

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