THE LABOR PARTY - by Tony Lintermans

THE LABOR PARTY

- by Tony Lintermans

A zoo animal that no one visits,
but needs feeding. A cuddle
carried like a rancid parcel
to polling day, nowhere to put it.
A howling muddle with no middle.

Plumb out of soul to sell,
fratricidal rumblings in its tract,
factions or stones in its stomach.
Left, right, pacing like a swell
with a pauper on its back.

Bored, frantic, shaggy and bereft
this beast was once a star:
powerful, nearly moral, popular.
When the leopard has no spots left
we in cages mourn from afar.

-from the anthology 'Best Australian Poems', 2005