2015 Kurilpa Cup Winner
CAM LOGAN
2011 & 2015 Kurilpa Cup Winner; Cam Logan
In a day of where we witnessed wondrous Words and Performance, one Poet stood out clearly, as Master of his Trade, and it was none other than Cam Logan the winner of the innaugaral Kurilpa Cup way back in December, 2011.
Delivering a bravaura performance, Cam was clearly at the top of his form and esteemed guest judge Robin Archbold had no hesitation in handing the coveted KURILPA CUP (said to possess Mystical Powers”) over to Cam at the end of the day.
Making his win even more impressive, Cam had also volounteered to be Mystery Musician that day, despite competing in the cup. So in between events, whilst sweating profusely in the Brisbane Heat and Humidity, he delivered two magnificent sets on an insect infested and wildly out of tune piano, that he somehow managed to tame. A sterling show and the audience loved the rollicking honky tonk tones he coaxed out of the collapsing piano!
The Water-Rat Gazette here proudly presents Cam’s prizewinning poems for your aesthetic appreciation..
“Don’t call me the piano man, Damn you!” Cam battles the insect infested piano.
POST BALLOT
My fingers tremble at the narrow narrow slot; such wanton choice, arbitrary option, A Greek Encounter, historically speaking.
It’s, intoxicating,
and oh-so… titillating, sexy clockwork canvassers, bureaucratic eye candy for the new world order,
the Parlance of philistines in the gaze of a one-eyed god,
they all whimper with the rolling steel,
Drooling and hate-fucking towards a new tomorrow,
the bottom line is survival,
some small rural compound filled with heirloom vegetables and interpretive basket weaving,
And we shall sing.
To the strains of cello 104 we’ll sing for broken promise,
the breeders pass from little death to actual death,
the last of several squeaking generations;
Ring in that New World with a repeated motif, those three forbidden topics,
Pounding to the rhythm of Schoenberg and thun-dah
Four chords of anger and an impotent strain;
the musky scent of genitalia past its prime, the rime of several sexless mariners upon the ballot paper.
Faces of deception, drawing their salary from heartache and backbreak.
Would you kindly name it?
Name your kindly fucking tune, put down that mighty objectivist doorstop and
outline now your fiscal diet,
Your inappropriate knight errant,
your sexy lady of the lake,
the sweat sheen glisten
in that patriotic noonday sun…
Wet dream becomes dry reality.
—Cam Logan
***
FUN TIMES AT GOMA 2
Gaze into the eye of taxidermy gone apeshit!
Mad, glassy eyes a-stare with self-pitying hatred,
and long, fake strands of spit hanging limp.
*
Limp, like the shadow cast by an actual living thing,
as lively as the feather duster vigilante
being asked stupid fucking questions all damn day,
How dare anyone question HIS qualifications!
Don’t you know that holy men rake sand also?
It’s probably zen, or something,
co-opted by urban hippies and stereotypical sitcom housewives
wracked with alcoholic boredom, ticking down to liaisons
with guitar-playing dreadlocked wankers
shuffling ’round barefoot through a mire of ganga haze!
*
Bale it all up, you well-endowed bastards,
and wash it down with a pint of Belgian horse piss
behind the frosted glass of Cafe El Wank,
Never mind the art gallery converted into a children’s bloody activity centre!
Squealing, squalling, teeming mass of pre-pubescent pus-filled piglets!
Brick walls a-shatter with sonic waves of bullshit banter
and munted runted proclamation!
*
Is that how Anthony Burgess felt all the time,
As he penned his special brand of high-brow
apologist self-deprecating satire?!
*
It’s OKAY!
To be.
A Dirty Old Man,
as long as you joke about it afterwards,
It’s all above board, as long as you’re yer own worst enemy,
As valid a self-defense reflex as that small breed of rodent,
that tears off its own testicles
to hurl at predators!
*
But enough of that. I’m here for the art.
It’s okay,
as long as you remember
to bitch about it afterwards.
–Cam Logan
Judge Archbold, President Hellfire and Cup winner Cam Logan
***
The Water-Rat Gazette 