This effort smashed together in about 30 minutes as sacrificial poem for WA Heats Australian Poetry Slam…
Judges
I stand up here
Fist to the skies
With a microphone
I advertise
Judges
I’m galvanised, I’m optimised
Unmasked and clearly sanitised
My human rights are classified
This poem is a sacrifice
This poem is a sacrifice
I’m Karenised and polarised
A Bunnings shouter mobilised
Phone in hand I paralyse
And you criticise and analyse
Our border has been Palmerised
And this poem is a sacrifice
This poem is a sacrifice
Judges
Insipid, wet and circumcised
A sanitised, incentivised
privatised and solarised
tranquilised and glamourised
a sacrifice a sacrifice
This poem is a sacrifice
I emphasise I emphasise
Judges please
And you paid the going market price
My GenX voice is amplified
All the judges mesmorised
And you judge
And you watch
And you score
We are mentalised, dehumanised
Verbally we’re brutalised
My privilege white and canonised
A midlife ranting moralised
a sacrifice a sacrifice
this poem is a sacrifice
Hypnotised and Urbanised
You scrutinise I testify
This poem is a sacrifice
Another fucking sacrifice
A compromise of shining eyes
We’re verbalised and legalised
A list of rhyming enterprise
As this poem dies – Really – dies
The words shall drop and fertilise
Just lost the will to sympathise or empathise
This wasted sound of sacrifice
In a two-minute standardised
A sacrifice a sacrifice
And I humbly apologise
And wait for you to stigmatise … judges?