1.

He surveys the tilled electorate, covets
his faded abacus of watched commentators
hauled jockeys who don’t know what’s missed
The record leader gnaws his record to the core
family smote around him in a lei
“We stick with what we know”
says the marginalled, marshalling her TV bytes
a bodyguard of season’s values and the stressed deputy
tiddlywink attentively


2.

“Excitement for the first time in yonks” a struck gallery keys
as the new leader estimates the stage
His kids circuit the maths chairs
An ex sighs

Aspirations whine like a semaphore
when popularity slated its
gift selves from the Tree of . . .

“We have signed niiine memoranda” the minister umpteenths out
ramping up his slush fund’s rumpled horn

or promise to change Tuesday to Monday
pulling a lizard from a hat
a ring of certainty buttered on his finger
raffling through a sulk, a ute
a nodule sheared off by his mates


3.

Swaggering misanthrope marooned in a nib
you go through the liege bracelet
and plethora friends living in their own coinages and scam

“We decide who comes into this country”
by algorithm or parachute
“and the circumstances in which they come”

with always the assumption that anywhere is better
crimson paddock and peppercorn or clattered heath he can’t beguile
a punter of woe riding out of luck.