Another poem turns up: The Hobart Art Prize

Rediscovered and revamped from my documents - and also posted on my art blog

georgesmileyart.blogspot.com

            

I built a sculpture let’s call ‘The Thrice- Tweaked Nose ‘

Composed a circumlocutory rationale and ponderous prose

My work, like love’s own progress;

Aroused at least in some -a minor irritation

Preferable to boredom, maybe rage and hate

Without the good bits –consanguinity; excitement

Or more often fear of late

And was nonetheless rejected –

“Vaguely poignant but devoid of inspiration in the present tense”

A pretentious brush-off by some poofter from the Tate

An English import here at great expense

That I should get the flick.

Have we nonesuch with equal or much better sense

Amongst our self- appointed elite local clique?

The judges all agreed /that ‘Meatybites Makes the Dog’ /was exciting as can be

Although the glued- up pellets on a board/ looked dusty and inedible to me

Most significant was the board itself; detritus from Scott’s actual hut:

Way back in 19 something no-one knew

That dogs were a so-much-better bet than ponies to pull them through
 

But

Not if you eat them and especially not their livers too.

Then

Tragically if only Scott and Meares could transcend death and space and time

Like in a movie plot

To deconstruct and reify and understand

Salvation scripted magically to hand

Getting out would be a piece of cake, a snap

If the dogs had lived and weather hadn’t been and wasn’t still so crap.


And so the living artist pens his lines and blots

And treads like Scott

To plumb the earth unto the very poles for fame

That my own dead dogs should rise

And bark

To critical acclaim.