AB


   
      Allan Banjo Border was Australia’s cricket captain
      who rewrote the record books

      AB © was a testy bugger (156 outings, 265 innings)
      with stubby chin & baggy green eyes

      A leftie,
      he took a swag of wickets
      & scored a tuckerbag of runs

      Saw active service in the Caribbean
      & led the campaign to South Africa in which Cronje surrendered
      Survived the dark days of the ’86 drought v. the Kiwis

      A balladeer with the bat
      AB penned Happy Dispatches about droving to distant boundaries
      & fielding behind the sliprail in Clancy of the Overthrow

      Breaker of partnerships, horses & shed windows
      he could fleer an attack
      & even slambang free selectors
      but would always lose out to Henry Lawson in a bush bash

      His bails were finally dislodged in May ’94 by the ACB
      leaving AB stumped speechless
      but for Paterson’s curse
      & a bittersweet taste of the ashes

                                                                             Michael Small
May 15, 1994
published The Mozzie, April, 2005, Queensland


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MEDLARS - SHE'S APPLES!

            In the rustic green garden of Catherine of Yarragon             Bobbled hundreds of frightful skulls of medlars woe-begone             Apples blackened with ague or rotting with plague on             To the wincing jaundiced quince, mug-ugly first cousin Yea, hundreds of death-masks dropping with aplomb             Like conkers, round brown faces, some bruised mauve to plum             Hollowed–out black eyes squinched neath nasal bar’s helm             Curving sepals summon knights from a distant Norman realm Mid a circuit of arthritic sticks, twiglets, thin limbs twisting r...
Read more

MORNING OVER FORT MADHOGARH

Clack, clack, clack breaks her village like beescomb, awakes the sun god, Surya.   Still treadling dark, young Hindu girl.   Dare she dream the kingfisher weave, silky azul?   Even the banyan tree stretches legs for parabolas of parakeets where peacocks mewl. And in dung-fed fields, orange saris gild mustard seeds.   After school, she buckles yet to her station.   Fluent in shuttle solely, tread imperceptible, deft.   Among stoops of elders rapt in village talk, card players hawking gustily, her father warps at gouging a wedge of droughty mud to fathom lake’s bed or burning rubbish and dead dog.   Pig’s work, eh?   Under kite’s eye, threading the brokered marriage day, his larki clacks blind duty.                                  ...
Read more

ADOLESCENT DESKAPE

crustating in class      vassal or vessel    dripfed by vultures war vets in gowns       boxed by backrest & knobbled desklid          iron stanchions stirruping lustings of legs             often id pore over that oaken scrawled slab                in veins of stephens blue black & ruby red                   Jackson Pollock   rorshached   bridget riley                      so pricked by the press of worsted weave                     ...
Read more