Williams was a doctor whose interest in Imagist poetry helped him greatly in his work. Very interested in nature, especially, like Marianne More, in the pantheistic resonance of great big animals.
THE CARNIVAL
Why is it that every year
On remote coastlines
Labour leaders
Beach themselves?
Whole schools of them,
Apparently healthy Labour leaders
Thousands of miles off course and stranded,
Spume drifting from their tragic holes.
Why do they do it?
Is it not knowing where they are going?
Or is it guilt over where they have been?
There is no more futile prospect in nature
Than ordinary folk with flippers and buckets
Working urgently in the deepness of the shore
To turn the stricken Labour leaders around
Before nightfall.
From The Even More Complete Book of Australian Verse by John Clarke
Photo Credit: The Courier (photographer unknown)
RIP John Clarke, a good man gone too soon. You will be sorely missed. Thanks for making our lives happier, funnier and richer with your humour, your charisma and your good heart.
Photo Credit: Photographer unknown
Goodbye to your wonderful alter-ego, Fred Dagg. We DID know how lucky we are. And, sadly, now we know how lucky we were.
Wonderful words.
ReplyDeleteVale John Clarke.
Thanks for sharing.