Short on shimmy
they took to the disco
with a resoundingwhomp of white
& solid silver
waves of wire;a platform
to berate from,
a wag the dog diorama;wearing only your shadow
& shouting
to the stomping thronga backroom
storm shelter, a platform
euphoria, plagued yourhalfway to decent
anti-progressive, rational
yet strident monologuepitched at doomsayers
of the glitterati, low-lobbers
& pinch-hitterswho’d forgotten
how their IDs were burned
back in the days before creditslalomed through car
dealerships & foaming
restaurantsleaving only ‘the market’
to determine aesthetics
& solicitdinner dates
where an oasis
was a hedge fundleaking liquid security
where trade isn’t free
& big bubbles can frya factory superstar:
crystal ball shimmering
in the trash, Chelsea Girlsworn & scratchy prints
ditched as war begins –
black monday, 1987flickers left of field
& radiators are left
glowing through summeras they loose a lemma
on the the green valley
of sillinessor call the bananas
out of the republic: the proposal
we just had to have& grew to love
as much as anything
that might save us from ourselvesor shakedown trance
at one hundred & fifty beats
per minute –fast enough
to blast extreme sports
off the mountains& rattle
sheer glass walls
of a tycoon’s penthouseyet not powerful enough
to change the way
we livein Cold War bunkers
abandoned only because
they’ll hold out none of the blastwhile they wait for recuperation
as delirious museums,
squattingwhere tektites
rain down through
glorious night’s sunshine& marsupials skitter
& forage
like strewnfield wastrelscounting on fine bones
dazzling paleontologists
& amusement park operatorswhose scandium-lit roundabouts
take science
for a ridewhich is tantamount
to messing under
the hoodwhen you don’t know anything
about it, not engineering,
not nuthinto shimmy by
when the moon is lustrous,
a beacon through space junksensitizing bruise & swoon
where we flounder
in waves of staticswooning & schmoozing,
collating best hits lists,
stuck on K-Tel’s Ripper ’76that nobody remembers,
it’s the latest constraint –
the no-nostalgia radio listwe fret over, squabbling
over the slice, the ear-horns
and his master’s voicebooming from the box
locking & popping & flipping –
impossible to mixthe schmooze, the swoon,
those ear-horns & hits,
platform shoe extravaganzas –I’ve got all my life to live,
I’ve got all my love to give
& I’ll survive, I will survive, I will survive
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones