Statistics

 

good morning

biggest tram network

most caffeinated city in the world

your coffee god of a hundred names

dozens of pronunciations

your ‘remember to hold on’

your ‘mind the gap’

never say this after lunch

 

good afternoon

how to say this in a city

with the most languages

some have no word for afternoon

they move forward in an atmosphere

of the four seasons in one day

when did that originate

pink then lime russet then black

converse with emotional content

hold onto your hat

throw an extra coat in the car

and tap the cost on the terminal

use sensibly until dusk

 

good evening

wealthiest once city of empire

your gold-edged boulevards

and bluestone villas

fastest growing city

since the day before federation

and roads turning bitumen

is geelong nervous of merging?

no one is saying

they have nothing to worry about

said sparingly with timing

 

good night

largest again city of australia

the great experiment

no one could dismiss

ever since the dismissal

most liveable and now

the dinner party topic is liveable

where olympic philistinism

is atoned for in multilingual tones

trenchant belief in facadism

we itemise where all the cities

we’ve visited don’t match up

say this last thing at night