Draft for a Country Ledger (parody version)

The paddocks lie in their hard light—

Australia’s promise and parody.

Politics here is a family trait:

the drunk uncle returning to the table,

the steak knives glinting like inheritances no one deserves.

I woke to the news as if to a summons—

another bargain struck in the dust,

another man rehearsing his public shame.

The local journo rasps the catechism

of deals, debts, and dwindling loyalties.

“In the end, it turns out not even a Wagyu steak from Gina Rinehart’s cattle company cooked on a sandwich press was enough to lock in Barnaby Joyce’s defection to One Nation.”

Afterward, the fields returned to their trance.

Cattle blink away flies and their basalt dreams;

the wind crossing the ridgeline

like spirits blowing chalk.

By noon the scandal had already thinned—

a food stain washed from a parliamentary shirt—

leaving the familiar aftertaste:

this country’s ache to itself

for just one more hour of desperate attention.