Typewriter

The twentieth century tapped away

Its final draft, its full-stop certainty;

Ink ribbon extended into eternity,

Carriage of meaning pressed against the day.

Typewriter century caps and wingdings,

A roomful of clicks dots stops raps returns

Made it quite clear what were its concerns,

Sprayed the page neatly with its type of things.

Its secretarial sincerity,

Its Olivetti confetti hi guys,

Its machine-like dream-like dexterity.

Its concrete verse on feathery paper,

Release from keeping inside justifies

Drawn to something familiar here.

Photograph: two pages of concrete poetry by Keith Haring. There is a whole room of Haring's typed writings at the NGV show. It reveals his early fascination with words as images. He has obviously encountered the extra-marginal world of the concrete poets. Some of the poems are political, others suggestive and sonorous. It seems he let go of this form when he started his city art full-time, but it's a sign of where he was going to go. Fluorescent tubes are also very twentieth century.