Theory

An American academic resident in Mel-born

Argued the plays were for reading not acting.

He sounded convincing, he sounded convinced

That Harvard expatriate in Melbn.

He strutted his stuff an hour or two in seminar

Then was heard no more.

The play within the play must be seen

To be believed. It does not live on theory alone,

But is like the words it comprises

Plays within plays needing present laughter,

A common audience of acquired idioms,

Those with an eye and ear and nose

For the comic possibilities of an armchair thespian

On a one-way return flight to LAX.

Theory (August)

Ivanhoe continues to marker the neglected author Sir Walter Scott with durable fluoro-pen. Darebin slides downward towards the Creek with the verisimilitude of William Carlos Williams. Alphington activates the acute allusive alliteration of absolutely abundant August Anglo-Saxon Australian. Fairfield characters could be Patrick White or Maeve Binchy. Dennis sites/cites/sights monosyllabic Samuel Beckett, sitting in its shelter grumbling, “I’ve had a Dennis of a day!” Westgarth bends like a metaphor in Mary Oliver. Clifton Hill excites platforms and tunnels of intertextuality, a storyboard for Charles Dickens and Barry Dickins. Victoria Park elicits memories of Swiftian mock-epics on the playing fields opposite.