Ode to Karl Marx
Old father of the horrible bride whose
wedding cake has finally collapsed, you
spoke the truth that doesn’t set us free-
it’s like a lever made of words no one’s
learnt to operate. So the machine it once
connected to just accelerates & each new
rap dance video’s a perfect image of this,
bodies going faster and faster, still dancing
on the spot. At the moment tho’ this set up
works for me, being paid to sit and write &
smoke, thumbing through Adorno like New Idea
on a cold working day in Ballarat, where
adult unemployment is 22% & all your grand
schemata of intricate cause and effect
work out like this: take a muscle car &
wire its accelerator to the floor, take out
the brakes. the gears the steering wheel
& let it rip. The dumbest tattooed hoon
-mortal diamond hanging round the Mall-
knows what happens next. It’s fun unless
you’re strapped inside the car. I’m not,
but the dummies they use for testing are.
JOHN FORBES
John Forbes (1950-1998) was both the best Australian poet born post-war and its most influential. His utter devotion to poetry was such as to have friends and colleagues both marvelling and despairing. Younger poets who never met him refer to him quite easily as John. Note: New Idea is an Australian women’s magazine once given to new ideas such as recipes and dress patterns, now the domain of pregnant ‘celebrities’ in full body profile.