Two-week locals

By Adam Gibson ©

the great coalface of fuckwits
at the Bondi Hotel,
mining for a glint of diamond
or hint of gold
amidst the grindstone shouldering of
beer we go
beer we go
beer we go
beauty being in the eye of
the beerholder and
the two week locals scan the crowd
for a familiar face from
the brothel of a hostel they stay in
30 to a single room
(not counting the cockroaches)
and existing on one single
two-minute noodle
every three days and
driving Western Australia registered
mid-80s Ford Falcons or Hi-Ace vans
that someone somewhere has taken to with
a can of spraypaint and the artistic flair
of a year 10 boy’s school art class
under the influence of way too much tie-dye,
a massive bag of hydro and the song
"No Woman No Cry"
as done by Ben Johnson or Jack Harper
or Ziggy, Twiggy or Wiggy Marley
and remixed by a wicked dj
who lives in a three-by-four concrete bunker
somewhere in Brighton and only emerges
to buy or sell Es to or from
eager teenagers who can’t stop moving and
who one day soon will be heading off to Australia,
four-year-old Lonely Planet in pack,
to live off the smell of an oily back
and to get more sunburnt
than it is humanly possible to get sunburnt
and to urinate on every flat and non-flat surface
in the entire suburb
just because they can
just because this is their time
just beer of course in hand
just beer-handed of course
just going with the flow of beer
just beer here glorious beer
just beer we go beer we go beer we go
and beer ego and no dollop
of an inkling
of a skerrick
of a glimmer
of a hint
of a thought
that they are just another in a long long line
of wankers and dickheads and scumbags and arseholes
who just all form together as one mighty structure,
one staked up vista,
a great coalface of fuckwits
descending like a plague of locusts
and with the same
two-week lifespan