Selected poems
The merger
This Corporation turned into a cult
when Gordon Gekko wed Veruca Salt.
Final year assembly
The children gather in the gym
to hear the last goodbye,
and through the skylight high above
they glimpse the summer sky.
The cowboy surfer
They loathed him to the core
because he wore
an Akubra
in Maroubra.
Tears of a robot
Struggling with a shovel –
unexpected toil:
burying my maker –
tears spill into soil.
Blind boy dreaming
A clique of corporate men
prepare to raid the earth again.
Despite their schemes,
the blind boy of the village dreams.
King of Sand
Where the highway of man
and the desert intersects
there’s a dude on a cross
with a crown of spinifex
who’s dying in the stifling heat.
A mulga lurks below his feet,
then slides across the sand alone,
condemned to rule a desert throne.
Damian Balassone is the author of three volumes of poetry, including the forthcoming collection of short poems and epigrams Love is a Weird Cat.