thanks Bill all those holes!!!!!
'dogs-balls standouts' is new to me!!cheersP
On 27/12/2016 21:15, Bill Wootton wrote:
> The four-storey office,
> 450 St Kilda Rd
> where I once worked
>
> now a big hole
> Big yellow machinery
> scraping more out
>
> Muted sounds of gouge
> from behind double-glazed windows
> in the Blackman Hotel next door
>
> Six months maybe
> My first full-time job
> after dropping out of uni
>
> 1976, pre-punk, Big Mal in power
> punchcards, flexitime, everyone
> accorded a numbered class level
>
> known or to be learned
> We base-grade clerks, all fifteen
> of us, dogs-balls standouts
>
> Files, batches, phone, desk,
> processing time. Time, always time
> except Friday drinks, Social Club
>
> Someone tapped a keg, 20c a glass
> one floor below stratified desks,
> loosened ties, toothy smiles
>
> All gouged away
> down the memory hole
> Let's drive to Perth, Denise
>
> I remember imploring
> a plump, lisping, earnest
> assessor one Friday
>
> Now right now let's
> not clock back on
> ever
>
> But we didn't, not then
> not ever. Denise married Peter,
> made clerk class four
>
> I went back to uni, taught,
> strode class-free classrooms
> Sidestepped the hole
>
> bw
> 27.12.16
|