As the World Turns

Australia is a country
is an island
is a continent
like a whole whale fish
swimming toward
the shapely tapered figure
of South America
who looks east
at her family resemblance
the larger heavy-set sister Africa
Who is seemingly indifferent to the chubby bouncing Buddha
Asia swinging its Kamchatka tassel
balanced on a slender high-heeled Malaysian peninsula

while kicking up the unbalanced Dutch clog
of the Arabian peninsula
Dancing a wild waltz with the reluctant but diminutive
baroque lady of Europe
Rough and ready North America eyes the mismatched couple

cracking the whip of it's Alaskan pony tail
and coiling an overgrown prehensile Mexican tail
safely in the warm waters below
leaving Antarctica alone
to spin as a top
in it's own cold abandon.

 

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

what an amazingly entertaining bit of personification in this piece...you made me visualize all of it...

i read the one line as "whip of its Alaskan pony tail" and last as "its own cold abandon"




but what a smile this is...poor Antarctica in its cold abandon...alone...like some people get when they abandon others...and grow that cold personality...

[rutherford]

Thanks Jacob. It started with thinking of Australia as a giant fish and it went from there.