I’m happy writing poetry, I have a lovely time;
I like its rhythmic symmetry and all those words that rhyme.
But here is my predicament…now please don’t take offence…
it really leaves me discontent that poems must make sense!

I like to write of platypi, for then I guarantee
that words of many syllabi make up my shiralee.
I like to watch them bend and twist and then turn back on you.
I guess I’m just a masochist…I love the switcheroo.

I’ve camped beside a billabong that’s haunted by a ghost,
an eerie spectral wobbegong…and lumps of buttered toast!
I’ve chased a big red kangaroo way out there in the bush
upon the slopes of Kathmandu and in the Hindu Kush.

I’ve climbed up all those ghostly gums beyond the back o’ Bourke,
replete with dangling sugarplums and fancy needlework.
I’ve rafted all the rivers too, just like the Castlereagh,
all bubbling like a beef ragout on Scottish Hogmanay.

I’ve seen it all, from north to south, from Perth to Syderney,
from Darwin’s bustling blabbermouth to Melbourne’s kiderney.
I’ve gone to watch the sun go down at tranquil Uluru,
and worn a paisley eiderdown while eating cheese fondue.

I’ve climbed the mighty Kimberleys and walked across Lake Eyre…
with great degrees of expertise and holey underwear.
I’ve swum the Murray and the Finke, the Darling and Paroo,
with Engelbertie Humperdink toot-tootling his kazoo.

I’ve trekked the Simpson in a drought and wrestled crocodiles,
I’ve lived on grubs and sauerkraut in canvas domiciles.
I’ve humped the bluey there and back, from Broome to Kakadu,
collecting bits of bric-a-brac to feed my cockatoo.

I’ve dug for opals, panned for gold, shorn sheep in many sheds,
I’ve been a Playboy centrefold and swum with hammerheads.
I’ve skied the Kosciusko slopes, I’ve been a jackaroo,
and eaten mouldy cantaloupes in downtown Humpty Doo

I’ve done it all, I’ve seen the lot, I’m Leichhardt, Burke and Wills,
and Lasseter in Camelot out picking daffodils.
There’s nothing in Australia that I have left to do…
for there has been a failure of words that rhyme with “oo”!

[David Campbell]