Written by
Les Murray |
To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass,
to camp out along the river bends
for good, wearing shorts, with a pocketknife,
a fishing line and matches,
or there where the hills are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
on the plank verandah -
If the cardinal points of costume
are Robes, Tat, Rig and Scunge,
where are shorts in this compass?
They are never Robes
as other bareleg outfits have been:
the toga, the kilt, the lava-lava
the Mahatma's cotton dhoti;
archbishops and field marshals
at their ceremonies never wear shorts.
The very word
means underpants in North America.
Shorts can be Tat,
Land-Rovering bush-environmental tat,
socio-political ripped-and-metal-stapled tat,
solidarity-with-the-Third World tat tvam asi,
likewise track-and-field shorts worn to parties
and the further humid, modelling negligee
of the Kingdom of Flaunt,
that unchallenged aristocracy.
More plainly climatic, shorts
are farmers' rig, leathery with salt and bonemeal;
are sailors' and branch bankers' rig,
the crisp golfing style
of our youngest male National Costume.
Most loosely, they are Scunge,
ancient Bengal bloomers or moth-eaten hot pants
worn with a former shirt,
feet, beach sand, hair
and a paucity of signals.
Scunge, which is real negligee
housework in a swimsuit, pyjamas worn all day,
is holiday, is freedom from ambition.
Scunge makes you invisible
to the world and yourself.
The entropy of costume,
scunge can get you conquered by more vigorous cultures
and help you notice it less.
To be or to become
is a serious question posed by a work-shorts counter
with its pressed stack, bulk khaki and blue,
reading Yakka or King Gee, crisp with steely warehouse odour.
Satisfied ambition, defeat, true unconcern,
the wish and the knack of self-forgetfulness
all fall within the scunge ambit
wearing board shorts of similar;
it is a kind of weightlessness.
Unlike public nakedness, which in Westerners
is deeply circumstantial, relaxed as exam time,
artless and equal as the corsetry of a hussar regiment,
shorts and their plain like
are an angelic nudity,
spirituality with pockets!
A double updraft as you drop from branch to pool!
Ideal for getting served last
in shops of the temperate zone
they are also ideal for going home, into space,
into time, to farm the mind's Sabine acres
for product and subsistence.
Now that everyone who yearned to wear long pants
has essentially achieved them,
long pants, which have themselves been underwear
repeatedly, and underground more than once,
it is time perhaps to cherish the culture of shorts,
to moderate grim vigour
with the knobble of bare knees,
to cool bareknuckle feet in inland water,
slapping flies with a book on solar wind
or a patient bare hand, beneath the cadjiput trees,
to be walking meditatively
among green timber, through the grassy forest
towards a calm sea
and looking across to more of that great island
and the further tropics.
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Written by
Ellis Parker Butler |
Behold, my child, this touching scene,
The golfer on the golfing-green;
Pray mark his legs’ uncanny swing,
The golf-walk is a gruesome thing!
See how his arms and shoulders ride
Above his legs in haughty pride,
While over bunker, hill and lawn
His feet, relentless, drag him on.
And does the man walk always so?
Nay! nay I my child, and eke, oh! no!
It is a gait he only knows
When he has on his golfing clothes.
Blame not the man for that strange stride
He could not help it if he tried;
It is his timid feet that try
From his obstreperous clothes to fly.
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Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
It was the Bondi golfing man
Drove off from the golf house tee,
And he had taken his little daughter
To bear him company.
"Oh, Father, why do you swing the club
And flourish it such a lot?"
"You watch it fly o'er the fences high!"
And he tried with a brassey shot.
"Oh, Father, why did you hit the fence
Just there where the brambles twine?"
And the father he answered never a word,
But he got on the green in nine.
"Oh, Father, hark from behind those trees,
What dismal yells arrive!"
"'Tis a man I ween on the second green,
And I've landed him with my drive."
"Oh, Father, why does the poor Chinee
Fall down on his knees and cry?"
"He taketh me for his Excellency,
And he thinks once hit twice shy."
So on they fared to the waterhole,
And he drove with a lot of dash,
But his balls full soon in the dread lagoon
Fell down with a woeful splash.
"Oh, Father, why do you beat the sand
Till it flies like the carded wool?"
And the father he answered never a word,
For his heart was much too full.
"Oh, Father, why are they shouting 'fore'
And screaming so lustily?"
But the father he answered never a word,
A pallid corpse was he.
For a well-swung drive on the back of his head
Had landed and laid him low.
Lord save us all from a fate like this
When next to the links we go.
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Written by
William Topaz McGonagall |
North Berwick is a watering-place with golfing links green,
With a fine bathing beach most lovely to be seen;
And there's a large number of handsome villas also,
And often it's called the Scarborough of Scotland, as Portobello.
The greatest attraction is Tantallon Castle, worthy of regard,
About three miles distant to the eastward;
Which in time of war reoeived many a shock,
And it's deemed impregnable and built on a perpendicular rock
The castle was built in times unknown to history,
But 'tis said it belonged to the Douglas family;
And the inside is a labyrinth of broken staircases,
Also ruined chambers and many dismal places.
Then there's the Berwick Law Hill, 612 feet high,
Which no doubt is very attractive to the eye,
And skirted with a wood and a public walk,
Where visitors can enjoy themselves and have a social talk.
The wood is really lovely and enchanting to be seen,
In the spring or summer season when the trees are green;
And as ye listen to the innocent birds singing merrily there,
'Twill help to elevate your spirits and drive away dull care.
Then near by Tantallon is the fishing village of Canty Bay,
Where boats can be hired to the Bass Rock, about two miles away;
And the surrounding scenery is magnificent to see,
And as the tourists view the scene it fills their hearts with glee.
Then away! then away! pleasure-seekers in bands,
And view Gullane with its beautiful sands,
Which stretch along the sandy shores of Fife,
Where the tourist can enjoy himself and be free from strife.
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