The butterfly house series, 2012, photograph by Nicole Page-Smith
Fast Talker
In the supermarket of the Kiwi psyche,
a collective brain dream fever:
the phallic pretentions of the admass mind-
a wriggling maggot nipple shoved towards the eye
in a land fit for anti-heroes, for zero gravity,
for Donald-where's-your-trousers.
Give a big hand for Hong Kong's King Kong,
for Bangkok's robot delivery arm,
for Tokyo's Karaoke Joe in a kimono,
for Manila's Godzilla, the sensitive lizard who cares.
Here in the flesh, drive your dollar further
with a canteen of ginsu knives.
Transmogrify on a winner's diet;
and like a motorcycle mana
from the port of Yokohama
cheerlead for chopper chicks in Zombietown.
Take up a trail offer for strange attractors,
for loving spoonfuls of instant miso,
for tranquilliser darts and tactical mission planners,
for secret building blocks of the universe.
Collect memory loss, tragic hair, alcohol-free beer.
Phone home; push paper; seem surplus.
Be nonplussed; be whereabouts unknown.
Evaporate; repopulate; form a human chain
of nameless remains; jawbone interest down.
Ride the retail wave; master the flavour mix;
get comfortable with chaos.
Be an anonymous, all-purpose, subcutaneous,
generic, genetic example of identity.
In the supermarket of Kiwi psyche
be the mystery of the collective me.
David Eggleton
