Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, Special Edition on Humour June 2024.
Dusty Cries, poem by Brian Purcell.
Dusty Cries
Every time
Dusty cries
her love for the Preacher Man
a man with a horse’s head
dances on a table
Lewis Carroll thinks
of his lust for Alice
or her sister
or their governess
before his head hits the glass
and absinthe tips
to the whirling floor.
Victoria approves
as Albert spins the grooves
and Dusty melts
slowly
into a hot Memphis night
like a Dali dog
pursuing lost memories.
2001 spins around
as Kubrick fakes the moon landings.
It’s the sixties, 19 or 18
and everyone’s tripping
on laudanum or LSD.
They exchange dirty postcards
and end up on Brighton Pier
with Dickens or James Dean
and a note from Graham Greene
to George who’s failed to find
the road to Wigan Pier
and coughs out the dust
from the streets of his people’s tears.
Haven’t you gone to ground yet
or found the whirling tunnel?
Tell all to look up
at the satellite
moving through the skies
of parallel times
as it sells its fears
to an ecstatic world
and Dusty smiles, sighs
and falls into bed
with a beehive on her head –
there’s no easy way down
© Brian Purcell
Brian Purcell is a poet/painter from Bellingen, NSW. Publishing credits include Meanjin, Plumwood Mountain, Southerly, and anthologies like Australian Love Poems. He’s had two exhibitions at the Shop Gallery in Glebe, The Day on Fire, and Estuary. His book The Leaving was published in 2022 by Flying Islands Pocket Poets.