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Loop-broadcast Remix

This is my Star-Spangled Banner,
This is my heart on a hanger,
This is my anthem in language only just learnt.

I’ve burnt my flag and my dollars,
Tagged up my name in my locker,
Ripped up my textbooks and kissed my teachers on the lips.

I don’t need “pleases” and “thank you’s”
But just a Jesus to spank me black and blue so I can get over the past.

Take off my school shoes and run barefoot
Amoungst the guns and the werewolves,
Over seven broken mirrors for 49 years.

I’m dancing with black cats under ladders
And I’m playing with matches while tanks play tips,
We’re ‘on’ if they catch us,

But I’ve decided not to play today.

There are too many new handshakes to learn
And too many web chat-rooms to hack into
And I can’t remember who to hate any more.

I don’t think Howard is wrong,
Or that he does gay things with Bush,
Or that one red button pushed will end my life.

Is that because there is no red button,
Or just that there always has been a bed rutton;
A rut in my bed from all the restless nights,
Buttering my bread with the black ink headlines
Reporting on the:
“Two trains travelling at 100 km an hour,
One going north and the other south…”
And we’re all looking for the smoke – but they’re electric.

Perspective is a one-way street,
Until someone plays chicken and you end up on their windscreen,
Looking through their eyes. YUCK.

Here lies the truth,
But I dropped it the hay pile…
And the lights are off…
And the hay is burnt…
And the needle is black…
And…what needle!?!

Bllllbblblblbllllll – look over there!
Eat your vegetables and watch Channel Ten
And wear condoms and
Think outside the square
because you’re free to play in the park on the swings with your inner-child.

Loop-broadcast remix;

Eat your children and watch the square and swing outside the condom
You’re free to play in the garden because you’re all vegetables.

Does a baker’s dozen make a difference when you’ve only got 11 guests to feed?
A fatter pig’s a slower runner - cheese and bacon,
Slimming pills and gym memberships
Block the sender, rent blockbusters, call the ghostbusters
“If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood…”
Because there’s a doctor giving children prescription pills
and I’m sick of the curriculum restricting them while your just sticking them on Ritalin when they’re bored and fidgeting or just not fitting in…
but I already said that last year.

This is a loop-broadcast remix!

Stop running around, just stand there and make something rhyme!

I’m next in line to climb the vine…

But Jack is allergic to bean-based fresh produce
and the giant can’t sleep with all the media helicopters buzzing around his head.

We’ve been above the clouds now
and sent time-capsules and astronaut wee into outer space,
but the aliens still haven’t weed back and time’s running out
and I need to take my capsule daily so unless you’re back by tomorrow,
you’re going to have to wait until the next pay run.

But my rent is due!

Are you still trying to find the needle in the burnt hay?
Did you work out the two electric trains riddle?
Or did I loose you at Star-Spangled Banner?

Or is this all just a big distraction so you forget
That you haven’t paid the parking meter
Or that you could be at home writing your own poetry,
…or are they both metaphors?

How much time do I have left?

[Response from Time Keeper]

Got to keep them entertained,
Or they’ll want to make a change,
Or they’ll think outside the brain,
Or they’ll… rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain
Same same same same same same same…

- B. Moon Child © 2005

Bravo's winning poem at the 2005 State Library NSW Poetry Slam.