kidattypewriter

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Filing cabinets: 1; Paul Keating: 0.

Paul Keating had a column in today's Weekend Australian Review, towards the end of which he says the following:
John Howard, possessing the cultural and artistic sensibilities of a filing cabinet
Now I'm going to go out on a limb here and say something that might be a little politically controversial, a little divisive. Just what the arse is wrong with filing cabinets? I know that some of the ideologically-driven weirdos out there may find that there is a little something wrong with filing cabinets, but that's not to say that former Prime Ministers should be pandering to their prejudices. It's time to reclaim the filing cabinet as a symbol of our culture.

With that in mind, I wrote this poem:

An Ode to a Filing Cabinet

It's large, grey and square.
It's not very pretty - but it's certainly there.

8 comments:

forlorn said...

Filing cabinets are a bit of an obsession of mine, for I have been waiting many months now for my secondhand filing cabinet to arrive. My filing cabinet has been tested for radiation with a Geiger counter, but still the admin man has not got around to signing the release form.

Filing cabinets should not be sneered at indeed, for you learn their value when there is a scarcity (artificial or real).

Martin Kingsley said...

Through sheer brilliance, you have won a prestigious poetry award. Unfortunately, your poem was so amazing that it tore the space-time continuum to mere shreds, and as such it's the Griffin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin_Poetry_Prize

TimT said...

I'd like to thank my mum, and my dad, and my brother's dog's hairdresser, and her cat also. I couldn't have won this paradoxical prize without them!

And of course, I shall be using the proceeds to start up a 'Filing Cabinet for Forlorn' fund right this minute.

Ampersand Duck said...

Wasn't that a marvellous PK line? I spilled tea on my counterpane for laughing. Serves the little toe-rag right.

[Stands and applauds the poetry award, and hopes it can be heard through the time & space continuum]

Caz said...

Your ode says it all.

I can add nothing.

(Congratulations on the prize, well deserved.)

TimT said...

Maybe the poem is deeper than I thought it was, reading it over now it reminds me of what Mum said in answer to my queries about what it was like to live with Bob Menzies as PM. "He was just there."

Then again, the best qualification I can think of for good underpants should be that they are there, and maybe that's what conservative PMs should aspire to be like, good underpants that are always just there.

forlorn said...

You're too kind.

Actually I need some bookshelves too. Perhaps you could enter all the limerick-writing advertising promotions and the like, in between scooping up the major literary prizes, and fund me a study.

prolix said...

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Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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