WHAT’S HAPPENING – Gareth Morgan

i’m 27 years old, and having my first taylor
swift moment. what is happening to me?
winter is coming and i’m heading toward life

is it my unfulfilled desire for country music
and barely knowing where to look for it?
is it that i feel like a fifteen year old girl

dating the football captain? is it that i want
to hit a low note with grace or dance like a
pure idiot picture to my own pop folk song

or that all these melodies i’d half heard in the
world i love have come back to cheer me on
on this walk to coles? it starts to rain…

what’s happening to me? i feel like weeping
and am conservative like a turtle, picking up
dinner and a vape, thinking of my only life

hoping no one interrupts this poem written
tonight in the foyer of coles and kmart footscray
my own private idaho i sit along to tell you—.

i was so pleased to see the web developers’
workspace swallowed up by last year and
my dream of a hearth in its barren dusty guts

blooming crossing buckley street. i see travis
smoking a cig after work outside his shop
west art supplies. i used to be the postie

but now i’m not. and the new apartment block
towering over him and i ruins the dusky light
and there’s more coming just like it, so say

goodbye to the barren fig tree on albert street
while you have the chance! job interview this
morning (wish me luck) then the sun was out

i had the whole day off, an empty ngv where i
found a lack of attention to detail in the john
glover landscapes, which i guess i related to

(i could hardly be bothered to render those
ten thousand palm sized rocks beautifully either)
but should we really call him our first great?

too bloody graceless, and even if those trees
were “just like that” doesn’t john glover kind of
suck at painting? and what about taylor? what

does she make of all this place? apart from lots
of money, and friendly ear holes… i’m wearing
my blue cap, i feel like gill tucker and i’d never

had a bright blue cap but suddenly it felt right
today in this exact foyer constantly blossoming
with people i didn’t know like a fountain outside

mr piccolo and super asian foods as my song
plays me into the supermarket, thinking of all
the people i love and the weird brightly lit land

this is tonight, what’s happening??

This poem is part of the Amazing Poetry Race. Discover all five poems by exploring the City of Port Phillip.
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