My Country (In Bonds)

"I love a Red-Taped country
A land of Bureaucratic forms
Of miles of yellowed triplicates
Of Green Papers, Digital norms;
I love her vast Proformas
Her Documental artesian sea
Her proper channels of terror
A queue at the desk for me."

MY COUNTRY (IN BONDS)

- after Dorothea Mackellar

The love of wit and freedom
Of soapbox speakers in a park
Of ordered dissent in gardens
A Magna Carta that you mark;
Patriotic scenes, heartfelt mindscapes,
Permanent streams, emancipated skies
We know of, but despise all that
Our true love is otherwise.

I love a red-taped country
A land of bureaucratic forms
Of miles of yellowed triplicates
Of green papers, digital norms;
I love her vast proformas
Her documental artesian sea
Her proper channels of terror
A queue at the desk for me.

A long commute each morning
A slow commute home after dark,
The off-white walls of buildings
Our gravy-train hero: the clerk.
Sound of paper in an out-tray
Song of files slotting into place
The life that produces our pay
Efficient use of office space.

Heart of our report, this country!
Her pitiless soul caught in paper
Sick at heart, but surrounded
In cool shade by the skyscraper;
So, when daily dark clouds gather
They have far worse to fear;
The loathsome public servant,
The bureaucrat - shaking a spear.

Heart of the country, the office
Land of the officious excise
Strong love for corridors of distance,
Flow charts ‘neath curtain’d skies;
After the demanding letters
Watch for a notice to rationalise,
The thin wedge of lettered whiteness
To dulls wits and tranquillise.

An obedient-hearted country
A willfully standoffish land
All who are not enslaved by her
So few like to understand;
Though earth has many a splendour
Wherever Australians may die
Give me a death certificate to fill out
A cremation form as alibi.

Image: Death of A Husband, 1958, by the late Australian artist Arthur Boyd.