David Prater
madchester
in a backroom practising the madchester stomp
playing basketball as the ice machines exploded
hiding cases of beer in our flares & wigging out
to the mondays dosed on smiley faces & white t's
inhaling our bandannas we "wrote for luck" (12")
staring right back at me ringo ian bought bevvies
we all got stoned & shaun set the beats rocking
while some guy called gerald played the sitar
& we all got stoned then hid cases of beer
in our flares & i'm growing my hair long!
you can't even see my forehead now or my ears
to a man we mooched out for lemonades
in the pool room someone held a cigarette we
huddled around it someone bought a mondays
12" & we thought he was stoned i sat on his radio
we heard the new valentines ep stashed bevvies
in our haircuts & how cool were slowdive man!
i gazed at my shoes for so long i developed arthritis
of the guitar i'd never even heard of ecstasy then
someone who worked in a record shop said i should
buy a cd player & the rest is supergrass - still i
bought the new mondays ep yeah i play it sometimes
even give the roses a spin every comedown or two
but i'll never go back to freaking madchester again.
we miss you!
the blood red leaves
those spangled madonnas of 66th st
shed miraculous tears of vengeance!
coz we miss you!
like an ATM slip
or something like you
the graeco-roman subway tiles just
join(ed) the fire department!
coz we need heroes!
in our aftermath,
shuddering at the last
this shortest straw:
children draw
dandruff hats
clocks frozen over
the red second hand a slit
across some little wrist
coming down
in a cornfield intact
huddled under wings
the seagull's
silver
follow its
staggered
salute
David Prater was born in Dubbo, Australia in 1972. He received an Honours degree in Australian Literature from Sydney University in 1994 and has since worked in a variety of research and educational settings. His poetry has appeared in Meanjin, Jacket, Going Down Swinging, slope (USA), JAAM (NZ), papertiger: new world poetry, Voiceworks and Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of Fusion Poetry (Rattapallax, USA). David now edits Cordite Poetry Review (http://www.cordite.org.au) from Melbourne.
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