What if… ‘Eddie Gilbert Selected’

.        

     for the Australian xi

given a ticket of leave from the aboriginal camp

west of Brisbane

on a chaperoned train ride to Adelaide

instructed to

Bowl Fast as you can at England

there’s Jardine lying on the crease

                                                holding his head

Eddie’s boomerang wrist from a short run

Native Knocks-out England’s Captain Cold

 I reckon Eddie

 would have been first

by his side

to make sure he was alright

the next ball

a scorching yorker

England’s Bodyline Strategy in Shatters

 

Eddie hiding from headlines of himself

on the train back to Cherbourg

///

This is a piece I wrote earlier this year after viewing the work of Artist Ron Hurley at Brisbane’s GOMA exhibition.  The life and cricket career of Eddie Gilbert fascinates me. I hear that The Sunday Mail has run a story about Eddie Gilbert today. There is also a statue of Eddie in full flight at Alan Border field in Albion, Brisbane.

Ashes

 (inspired from David Stavanger @readerinres ‘ashes’)

a bruised face records the good shots
an inelegant swann spins from vulture street
I miss the hill – I don’t
miss the dog track – what happened
to Happy Jack?

we aussies sing in beautiful chorus
when the lyric includes ‘wanker’ – Broad is
conducting crowds in a deep square
the kid in front is seeing the beach ball
like fruit-flys

the umpire doesn’t have his eye in
the member’s haze on stanley is rich
boxes come in air-conditioned
or extremely humid

Section 14 Row T seat 7 is bellow
XXXX survives on event monopoly
slow motion replays reveal VB stepped on
toes over the border

 the umpire called
‘bye’

 It requires 6 x ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one for a Mexican 2 pi R

white is a canvas
bowlers draw batsmen
holding the bat out
there’s a spot they missed
for advertising

Wooloon-cappemm (jagerra)
means place of swirling plastic beer cups