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Welcome to Sydney 2020
by darcy Sunday, Dec 1 2019, 5:50pm
international / poetry / post

Cough and splutter is the current condition
as 123 bushfires rage across NSW
spewing toxic smoke on the harbour city
and blanketing it in airborne treacle

This condition never before faced by Sydney,
the 'beautiful harbour jewel' of the civilised South Pacific,
is backgrounded and under-played in the media as no true blue Aussie
would want to compromise the illusion
of the metonymy, a barely visible bridge ghosted in smog and smoke
through which the white Opera House now sails.

The boy from Kogarah recently died from emphysema and leukaemia in London,
he would have died much younger here in hometown Sydney
and in his hypothetical death throes
his acerbic pen would have lashed our useless politicians
that did not prepare for climate change and increased fires,
but what's new in this once clean, beautiful choking city?

Goodbye Clive, say hello to Les for me
though i hear you both lamenting from the grave,
Sydney is now one of the most air-polluted cities in the world
and if you choose to visit, leave your lungs at home.