Ekka - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

The Ekka institution bares us all, though call it Exhibition, Royal
Queensland Show, it’s that time of year when you will go in
liberal spirit where the spectacle of fantasies escrow.

Gaudy frills and simple bunting still excites the passive soul,
ignites the fires patrolled by commonsense and daily grind,
enlivens dour inclines with smeared hypnotic flossy smiles.

You wander for a while, mouth agape in milling throng diffused with sounds
and smells both strong and rank and rare, ponder if you dare but move
along or stand aside, or be beleaguered in the tide.

Agile sellers spruik their wares in choral dissonance from booths
that crowd the narrow ways, writhing from displays of goods
you’ll never need or ever use, their cries confuse your commonsense.

The eyes in distant faces move in hazy motion, dazed, endangered
for the moment short of focus, searching for a locus to engage,
staring still amazed and buried in a trance-like syrup dance.

You pay and pay for things you never buy, consume exotic fruits
that sellers ply like smarmy snakes entwined in hanging vines within
your reach, devour the pith and core and seeds and then seek more.

You watch events you cannot comprehend, comments from the cryer
broadcast from the centre ring amuse, confuse or drive you from your seat,
you applaud in concert with the station hands who seem to understand.

When you have drunk the plastic cup of Ekka essense sad-dispensed,
supped and limned within the flow of raw emotion, emptied out your
pockets neat then you may go and flee the grounds, your soul replete.
© I.D. Carswell