by Garry Lyle
Travelogues, radio have made
those “west beyond the sunset” lands
that boyhood fancy glamorized
familiar as Noosa sands.
Small difference exists between
the warring east, the snarling west;
it’s just as hard to find a job
in ‘Frisco, Melbourne, Buda-Pest.
Arkansas farmers curse their luck,
like cockies of the Wimmera
and similar twaddle drivels from
the Reichstag, White House, Canberra.
Girls think alike in Bourke, Madrid:
slit-eyed Ko-Fuji has no more
alluring ways, is no less vain
than Sadie at the corner store.
Starvation hurts in any port
and hulas by Hawaiian seas
are more enjoyable when viewed
at home in technicolour ease.
Yet never does the dawn reveal
some dirty southward-bearing ship
but I sail with it down the bay
bound anywhere beyond the Rip.
by Garry Lyle (1939)