Poetry Spot: Phillip Adams

Phillip Adams (1939 - ) is an Australian humanist, social commentator, broadcaster, public intellectual and farmer. He hosts Late Night Live, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) program on Radio National four nights a week. He also writes a weekly column for The Weekend Australian. 

the following poem by Phillip Adams will be inexplicable to a lot of overseas readers becuase of its many local references but understandable to those living in Oz. (Enjoy, Noel).

I love this bloody country: a heartfelt poem

- Phillip Adams (2014)

I love this bloody country

this land of booze and honey

of Opera House and Harbour Bridge

of shearing shed ’n’ dunny

I love this bloody country

where the sea is full of sharks

where there’s redbacks on the toilet seat

where your car gets booked by narks

I love our bloody country

this island Gert by sea

of rabbit, snake and cane toad

and the eucalyptic tree

Where your pollies are all ratbags

either that or on the take

where it’s hard to tell the difference

between reality and Rake

Where your team gets trounced each Saturday

and your pub runs out of beer

where you’re bank-robbed by the CBA

and nagged by Germaine Greer

I love this bloody country

of drought and flood and fire

with asylum seekers welcomed

with lots of razor wire

Where bigotry is Brandis’d,

and tolerance? A mockery,

thanks to ranting, raving racists

in the ranks of our shock-jockery

I love this bloody country

this land we call Australia

which has an awful anthem

coz Australia rhymes with failure

Australian stories end in woe

Or in acute embarrassment

like Gallipoli and Burke & Wills

and Rolf’s revolting harassment

(Another woeful ending’s

in our national song

when a suicidal swaggie

drowns in a billabong.)

I love this bloody country

where nothing could be finer

than to have the place exported

by some rapacious miner

Our commonwealth of minerals

by legislative stealth

goes to Clives and Ginas

to create uncommon wealth

And while Gina counts her billions

we must count the cost

in budget cuts to everything

because of taxes lost

Once Australian megawealth

was the gift of the merino

now it comes from human sheep

fleeced in James’ casino

Why salute the Union Jack

on our patriotic rag?

a Dickies towel or galvo sheet

would make a prouder flag

(The Queen’s a nice old lady

but it’s really time to ditch her

– better that our head of state

was someone like Lowitja.)

I love this bloody country

where all our famous brands

from Vegemite to Qantas

are flogged to foreign lands

And where our trad Australian slang

(drongo, dinky-di ’n’ dingo)

is forgotten in the rush

to Coca-culture lingo

I love this bloody country

it really could be worse

when this ancient columnist

goes from bad to verse