Fat carp smack up

our boat. Far up,

far out, flap out t

he tarp. The sad

thing sags — a barb.

A barb.

 

A Barbara at Coonabarabran

eyes our jackets and

my pierced nose. But

she gives us coffee

to be scrambling up

the escarpment to park

our car. Put a

fist in my hair

while I feast.

 

What strange love have

you brought me, gub

carp from the city?

If we were fish,

like we are almost

now, parsing east the

river veins. And say

a Barbara, a pest

a barb like a

carp, pulled you up

far up her boat.

 

          I don’t want to think about it.

 

You’d flop on a

hot tinny floor you

fellow, with your lot.

Gut both you gubs

so you don’t pop.

 

          The   Fisheries   Management   Act

encourages, but does not mandate, such

things.

 

And then hello, yellowbelly

bedfellow. Bellow gasping. Fold

like this foil on the

fire — lips together to

vent, I think, and

lips and lives together

for Centrelink.

 

If we were fish,

like we are eating

now, yellowbelly sweeping in f

rom the west. Then

idly resting your breast,

knowing what love we

know to detest. A

proselyting tide spreading up

the highways. 

The carp didn’t start this. This is my ways.




We are afflicted with

these disgusting,

mud-sucking

creatures—bottom-

dwelling, mud-

sucking creatures.

 

The only form of

control is a version of

herpes; it is the only

thing that will get rid

of these disgusting,

mud-sucking

creatures. We will

move forward on this

because we believe

 

that we should be

getting rid of these

disgusting, mud-

sucking creatures in

order to support

some of the better

animals of our

waterways—the

silver perch, the

yellowbelly, the

Murray cod, the

 

 

 

Eastern cod and the

catfish. You have to

go to some extreme

measures at times to

make sure that we

 

 

 

 

 

keep our economy

and our environment

healthy—even if it

requires a version of

a venereal disease to

deal with the carp. If

that is what is

 

required, then that is

what is required.

We…are going to

make sure that we

have healthy rivers

and a healthy

economy, because we

are going to get rid of

the carp.

— Barnaby Joyce,

     May 2016.