Starting with an open-ended, resonant poem title of some kind, and then trading lines, back and forth over email, John Kinsella and Toby Fitch built one poem at a time across several years until the mostly long poems of this manuscript began to accumulate and spiral around the question, Is Canberra a metonym? Here are four of those poems.
Prank
At first prank,
as shipping container
upon shipping container
opened to reveal parts
they relished the thought
of layering vox-pops from
vacuum cleaner maws
all across those air waves.
This piqued lobbyists,
their mithril-vested
interests, and war plans
were let slip in DMs. At
second prank, monologues
from minor characters’
voices in their talky heads
sold them on the prospect
of becoming a prospector
by proxy, of supplying the
shiny parts of the machinery
for a nightmare conducted
by some other ‘global power’
on behalf of another.
It was too irresistible
not to settle into, like
the promise of a wink,
a secret pact, or a dessert
at the ‘Clean Plate Club’.
And the premise was not
so outlandish now the land
was apparently on offer
as future tourism hotspot,
nor now their souls had
been hit by an outage.
However unwieldy
behind the wheel,
they were now on song,
a-okay, even splendid
contents dished up
to the lowest bidder
for a flash-in-the-pan
ballot harvester. Out
of the grain elevator
and down the price rungs,
right into missile silos and
out through the comments
sections, weapons designs
from the home dealer
working with a reasonably
decent 3D printer spread
like, well, wildfire, even
if it turned out to be
the eponymous prank.
At third prank, there’s
a fuel-inefficient Netflix
series to be made from
the Lord it Over Them
bright white goods
manufacturers ready
to join a party plan,
bevelling each other’s
heads so that the sitch
becomes tantamount,
before and after
a cleaving of the rhetoric
incorporating corporate
bodies, the body incorporate
as leverage to inveigle
uranium dreams
into the water supply
and tender each pealing
backyard renovation
null and void within
One Hundred Days
in ways that suit offshore
patriots and absentee
landlords, in ways that
hold sway with donors.
There are no character
limits to the pranksters’
give-aways, but this isn’t
a metonym for Canberra,
is it? Should we dare risk
questioning all this
(What, after all, is
a prank but an issue
of tone, a case of
moderation in all things,
creating the kind of
bothsidesism you can’t
not get behind, yeah?)? Nah,
question time is an open
and shut case, barely a
flight risk. And Parliament’s
about to rise for the year,
and the promises made
will hang themselves
from the Christmas trees,
the silver-lined policies
baubling from branches,
till the next set of pranks
tumble out of the ballot
box and into the dish
of New Year’s resolutions.
One for the plaster,
one for the paid, one
for the little boy’s
investment portfolios
shoring up his reign.
