Very enjoyable! I remember those annoying paks - much prefer a bottle or
box carton.
Andrew
On 21 July 2016 at 08:01, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Fair cop, Max, re 'pak' and Doug, re mashup. I suppose I thought I could
> slip it in as a 21st c narrator looking back. Re State, I cut 'school' to
> avoid its overuse in the original but I can see it could pop back in here.
>
> Bill
>
> On Thursday, 21 July 2016, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Fun, Bill.
> >
> > But: “East Ivanhoe State’ sounds like a small US college somewhere (I
> know
> > it’s not, but). And was ‘mash-up’ a term back then?
> >
> > Doug
> > > On Jul 19, 2016, at 7:13 AM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]
> > <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > >
> > > This is an expanded version of an earlier poem I think I submitted here
> > > called The Burner. Now it's a sort of companion piece I suppose.
> > >
> > > Bill
> > >
> > >
> > > East Ivanhoe State's Tuckshop lit up our lives.
> > > A drab building adjoining the library when shut,
> > > it sprang to colourful life each recess and lunchtime.
> > >
> > > Bright boxes of pink musk sticks; yellow cartons
> > > of flat twelve-inch liquorice straps, a penny a pop,
> > > longitudinally peelable, so six for the price of one.
> > >
> > > Chocolate Royals we smashed on our foreheads
> > > before easing off cracked chocolate to reveal
> > > marshmallow- white or pink - on a crisp jam biscuit.
> > >
> > > And what about local mash-ups like 'favouries':
> > > rolled-up buttered soft pikelets, two a penny.
> > > Cut sandwiches from home - huh! No competition.
> > >
> > > Summer treats were Sunnyboys: sweet orange
> > > cordial in tetrahedral paks, also available frozen,
> > > the better for lasting longer, but forcing choices.
> > >
> > > Do you suck out the flavour as the frozen bit melts
> > > knowing you will leave tasteless pale ice at the end
> > > or do you belt your Sunnyboy on a Tuckshop rail,
> > >
> > > allowing an even mixture of flavour and ice crunch?
> > > Or for true aficionados: wait, slurp up ice, let it drop
> > > back to pak, slurp some more until all that's left
> > >
> > > is impossibly superlative concentrated cold orange.
> > > And then the ripping apart of soggy silver foil;
> > > who had a 'lucky'? The magic printed blue words
> > >
> > > 'free tetra pak' inside entitled you to suck again.
> > > If you dipped out, and The Burner had already
> > > been raked through, search for unripped paks.
> > >
> > > Classrooms were the places for skill acquisition,
> > > gyms and ovals for physical jerks but for sheer
> > > sensuality, it's hard to go past The Tuckshop.
> > >
> > > bw
> >
> > Douglas Barbour
> > [log in to unmask] <javascript:;>
> > https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
> >
> > Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations
> > 2 (UofAPress).
> > Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
> >
> > Automobile Accident
> >
> > Not finding where the flowers were
> > he seized a tree.
> >
> > Lorine Niedecker
> >
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
Books available through Walleah Press
http://walleahpress.com.au
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