Content Warnings (click to reveal)
Discussed: death
[un]i[on] [r]ally
after [the rally]
the beers [are costly]
[the] extra [working] hours
to catch [up on] the gold[star] minutes
because [if] you [don’t] laugh [you cry lots]
at the [in]justice of summer [rate-hikes] working
champagne [day]dreams swilling from [coffee cup] crowds
the WhatsApp group [dia]tribing about the umbrella [clause]
[the last] hope is [attribution &] the raining day [fund] that’s gone
sand[stone gargoyles] and big [glass] windows and a view[less] of[f]ice
[working is fun for] up[per management down]town [at least] drinks [help]
[don’t] think of where we are and what has brought us [to our hands and knees]
[fight for] the right to blissful [ignorance over the] weekends
Smash-avocado-mouth
I want a reno on my smashed avocado
like take me back to the market value of a market
stall: a threadbare prayer-flag, diamantes & Slim Dusty
records. Simpler times: out on the patio in the shadio
of a dude-plex talking infrastructure & ponds-y
schemes, as in from birth to death, anyone can
fish. Give that sucker a good night
peck for me, this is the luck of the God-damn Lucky
Country—cocky cunts—with more bindis
to poke a stingray at
& Websters wire-flying overboard.
What happened on the boys’ weekend stays
in the bush among all the machinery:
ain’t it elegant how a lyrebird knows
every cadence of a chainsaw, just like
my granny hums the tune to Dragon Cash
& Queen on the Nile. Whistlin’
that up like the water pourers they used to sell
at Off Ya Tree—when you could get a fifo
from a FIFO without joining the union chat.
with that? Can’t a rock-spider Mario his way
through geo-politics without ever getting
to the big bad boss? Sure, I’m feeling it
at the Bowser
like three too many
seasons of whose house is it
—anyway, what’s the middle
income of the middle east, today?
Like sarg is talking flexi hours, weekend rates,
enough grog at the Christmas party
to black out Beth
-lehem. Cause ain’t that the definition of market
reflux: asleep in the hedge fund, again. Imagine: Op
-en Country like the days when solariums
went suburban. Before the PC
-YC bought up the neighbourhood. Saving us?
Saving us from Savers & those Bach. Comms
going on about Bach Commies. Just give
me the keys, lowriders & Megadeth.
Cause I ain’t riddin’ myself of the Hilux.
That baby’s the only thing smashing
mouths anymore
& ain’t that the truth: we can
make can-cans great again. Just watch me
waltzing into waltz classes
on a Fri-yay & looking out
for my Matilda.
Poem
For Jennifer Compton
You said to me
Oh darling you have not yet been humbled by poetry
But that is not exactly true
Each day I humble myself to the poem
I turn that which is unknowable
Into that which is unbroken
Tim Loveday is a poet, writer and baby academic. His work explores class, masculinity, online radicalisation and climate collapse. He won the 2022 & 2024 Dorothy Porter Poetry Awards, the 2025 Calanthe Prize and the 2023 Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Award, came runner-up in the 2024 Cloncurry Poetry Prize and was a finalist in the 2023 David Harold Tribe Poetry Prize, the 2024 Griffith Review Emerging Voices Prize, the 2024 Best Australian Yarn and the 2024 Montreal International Poetry Prize. Tim teaches Creative Writing at Unimelb and RMIT. He is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Unimelb. More: timloveday.com. Insta: @timloveday_
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