Howard Firkin
To people of Australia I bequeath
cicadas. Let them every summer bore
(or try) their one persistent thought in your
thick skulls, and fail. Then let them pack up, sheathe
their drill bit voices, and return next year.
I leave you also that peculiar smell
of asphalt softened in the summer heat,
and dusted with the fur/scale/feather/meat
of roadkill, confident you’ll use it well.
And if you don’t? Who cares? I won’t be here.
Regretfully, I have to leave you while
you’re still developing your reputation:
the world’s most stupid, greedy, careless, vile,
self-satisfied, unthinking, lazy nation.
cicadas. Let them every summer bore
(or try) their one persistent thought in your
thick skulls, and fail. Then let them pack up, sheathe
their drill bit voices, and return next year.
I leave you also that peculiar smell
of asphalt softened in the summer heat,
and dusted with the fur/scale/feather/meat
of roadkill, confident you’ll use it well.
And if you don’t? Who cares? I won’t be here.
Regretfully, I have to leave you while
you’re still developing your reputation:
the world’s most stupid, greedy, careless, vile,
self-satisfied, unthinking, lazy nation.
