JEFF
KLOOGER
The New World
- And what would you have me do?
- The lessons – chewed over,
- swallowed, digested, absorbed,
- – weigh heavily on me,
gather
- at my midriff, slow me up
- and wear me down
- to the paper-thin, almost
translucent
- bones of my skull. Look!
- You can almost see right through
- to where I’m thinking of
something
- unimaginable, or imagining
- the unthinkable.
-
I
have grown old
- without growing, as the world
itself
- has grown – not smaller
(McLuhan
- was wrong) but more dense, like
a dying star
- clinging to its wayward
elements, clutching
- the self’s tattered
remnants to its breast.
- In this, our second childhood,
we hope
- for no remission, wander
- slack-jawed and starry-eyed
- through museums of our absurd
and bloody evolution,
- stealing away with history like
shoplifters
- stealing out of Madame
Tussaud’s.
- "Our lives won’t be
the same again," we sigh,
- "and never any
different."
Jeff Klooger’s work has been published in a number of
Australian literary journals, including Meanjin, Overland and Westerly. He
has a PhD in social theory and philosophy.
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