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    Not Quite the Man for the Job (HD Battlespace Version)
    Not Quite the Man for the Job (HD Battlespace Version)
    Not Quite the Man for the Job (HD Battlespace Version)
    Ebook120 pages41 minutes

    Not Quite the Man for the Job (HD Battlespace Version)

    By Adam Ford

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    About this ebook

    Down-to-Earth poetry about life and love in the city. Poems for people who think they don't like poetry (and those who do). Poems as compelling as your favourite song lyrics. Contains bonus subject index.

    Not Quite the Man for the Job was the winner of the inaugural REACT Top Young Adult Read, 1998 and a nominee for Age Book of the Year, 1998.

    Michael Leunig said: "Adam Ford's poetry is young, open-hearted and generous; and, in spite of it all, it seems glad to be alive. In a depressed and deceitful world it declares and asserts itself with real strength and great good humour while still yearning deeply, here, there, and elsewhere, for grace and loveliness, with a persistent, sweet courage. There is also something of the irrepressible, spirited, folk voice here too: the timeless regenerative voice; the odd, funny voice that comes cheerfully out of some unlikely place, usually just in the nick of time, to awaken us from our moribund, world-weary sleep."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAdam Ford
    Release dateMay 25, 2014
    ISBN9780463933473
    Not Quite the Man for the Job (HD Battlespace Version)

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      Book preview

      Not Quite the Man for the Job (HD Battlespace Version) - Adam Ford

      You said,

      "Don't you go using this in

      One of your poems."

      Consider this an apology.

      isms

      I'm a bit worried

      about all of this

      rampant pigeonholism &

      unnecessary categorisationism,

      but I guess you could say

      I'm a believer in

      sleeping latism,

      vegetarian lasagnism &

      thai green curryism,

      romantic poeticism,

      friendly humourism,

      pub bandism,

      early morning sexism,

      Sunday paperism,

      brand new bikism &

      crappy old carism,

      late-night T.V.-ism,

      Star Trek Voyagerism,

      good bookism,

      open firism,

      thunderstormism &

      user-friendly cynicism.

      Driving Behind a Tram

      I'm driving behind a tram.

      Fuck.

      I'm driving behind a tram.

      I'm stuck!

      I cannot have this!

      This cannot be!

      This slow-moving thing can't be in front of me!

      I guess I'm just going to have to

      race around and to the left of the car that's peacefully following right behind the tram, narrowly squeezing between the tram and a parked car, just missing the people who are foolishly trying to alight from the tram in the middle of MY ROAD, and kick it up to eighty to compensate for lost time.

      I've put the tram behind.

      Oh boy.

      I've put the tram behind.

      Oh, joy!

      I almost killed people.

      I did, goddamn!

      But at least I'm not stuck

      Behind that fucking tram.

      Rush

      The cup thunks back onto the table, empty, & the bean races through your blood, bouncing off the walls of veins capillaries arteries arterioles venules entering your brain & showing those neurons & synapses what for. Get moving, you sluggish chemo-sensitive sonsabitches! We got the power to keep you up for hours! Neurons hesitate & pitifully protest but soon are caught up in the song of ZAP! ZOW! ZAM! & ZING!! Eyes widen pupils & nostrils dilate hair tingles limbs tremble risorial muscles tense mouth opens throat opens & WHEEEEEEEEE!! HOT DOG! YEE-FUCKEN-HA!! We're there.

      Oh, yes, cries the bean, "you just can't argue with us! Born under desert skies, that ol' goat-herder really wondered what in Allah's name was up with his goats, didn't he? We got them dancing & jiving & writing iambic pentameter in Russian! We got them bleating up a storm, running around like they'd just had a barb-wire enema! & when HE started chompin' on those beans, he got such an Allah-be-damned surprise, he fell to praying & didn't stop bobbing his head up & down for a week. We travelled the globe, stopping off in the Americas, sharing a spot next door to our cousins, the cocas, & we got this to say to you. Have another cup, boy! Hell, have two more! We're looking for a new home, & we picked you!

      We don't care how you have it, white, black or even with that fuzzy chocolate crap on top, just so long as you have it. Can't you feel the strength we give you? Energy, my friend. N. R. G. Now you can go out & do whatsoever your bunny-beating little heart desires. Twice in ten minutes. Go for it boy, sprint! You're ours now, you sonofabitch. All the way from Brazil to you. We want you to have a good time, & all we ask in return is that you HAVE. A. GOOD. TIME. Now, don't you feel like another? Hmmmmm?"

      Your quivering hands put the percolator back on the stove. You strike a match (dropping the first, but getting it the second

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