A Rhapsody for Ken Slessor

A Rhapsody for Ken Slessor

Ken Slessor, you tosser, your oysters of imagery open;

your bow-tie’s a gig at a wharf where the harbour-lights ripen

on pintles and gudgeons and luminous snags of the oceans,

where hulls at their knocking go ruddering strangest emotions.

Ken Slessor, your whiskies are combed with the Darlinghurst nights;

here ketches and liners go honeymoon in their sleek lights,

and rust on a hull has the tincture of gingery hair …

O daydreamer dandy, you cocktail such bright otherwhere

for whimsies to walk in their cufflinks and green satin boots,

then linger in pawnshops and chat with outlandish galoots,

or scrutinise sea-charts whose scale is one mile to the inch,

all feathered with shoals whose names are John Benbow, Joe Lynch,

while the man on the tram picks the fluff from his three-cornered hat,

“Lieutenant James Cook, sir, delighted, I’ve wanted to chat.”

Ken Slessor, you wizard, what is it so brilliant and lush

you snatch from our harbours where scuppers are drooling deckwash,

and undersea hawsers are bearded with green maidenhair …

O newspaperman, you entrance with Time’s timeless elsewhere.

Ken Slessor, you blue-eye, you citizen deep in the clock,

miscellanies order their commonwealths by your tick-tock,

as debutante shoulders go sailing the Ritz and Palais

and wool-ships undress at their berths along Circular Quay,

where halyards go snapping, where anchors are catted and slung,

over mermaids and mariners speaking their lost mother-tongue,

for poets grow modern and wear handkerchiefs in breast pockets,

as trams make blue lightning and travellers ship aboard packets.

Now dusk is on Pitt Street, the tea-shops rectangles of blonde,

and time is your scullion, your skill, and somnambulist’s wand.