The Pitch

We open in the deep jungles of Narnia, where a fiendish plot is being hatched to resurrect Hitler by extracting DNA from Oompa Loompas trapped in amber. Meanwhile, in the remote steppes of Afghanistan, Xena, the kindhearted half-woman, half-prawn, has been granted three wishes after withdrawing a thorn from the paw of Gandalf. She wishes to become a real boy, and through a bizarre series of coincidences, finds herself shouldering a bayonet on the beaches of Normandy. EXPLOSIONS! As Richard Gere leads a crack platoon of paratroopers on a full-frontal assault. They storm the fortress, secure the beachhead, but Skeletor escapes with the Castafiore diamonds! Which he uses to finance a total makeover in order to go undercover as an ordinary teenage girl at a suburban Los Angeles high school. He joins the cheerleading squad and uncovers a complex conspiracy to program a Gulf War veteran to assassinate the Titanic. He brings the information to the FBI, and an irresistible attraction develops. Skeletor and the FBI go on a hilarious road-trip across the country wherein they discover both America and themselves, until they reach Philadelphia, where they are captured and tortured by a sinister cannibalistic family of junior ice hockey players, who take the day off school and run amok in downtown Chicago, and that is how Harry Potter won the Hogwarts Cup!

But it doesn’t end there. In fact, it doesn’t end anywhere, for just as he is raising the cup above his head, the news comes through: Pocahontas has escaped from Alcatraz! A search party sets out, led by the intrepid Indiana Jones and his buxom assistant, Dr Zaius. With the assistance of a kindly but irascible goblin landlord, they succeed in their mission, but just as they are about to hurl Annie Hall into the fires of Mount Doom, they realise: Rosebud is the Statue of Liberty, and come to see the terrible truth: Soylent Green IS Keyser Soze! And so they must now take young Anakin and go back to the future to ensure that George McFly marries Sarah Connor, thus saving Christmas!

Music by Randy Newman.

Ben Pobjie

Tex Message

You gave me your mobile number
And with it hope
I sent unanswered tex
And felt like a dope
I’ve summoned all my courage
To send this tex
Please can we get together
And have some…thing to eat

Miriam Lev

Thirst

There’s no such thing as angels
He dipped his toe in the water
And found me waiting there for him
We played tennis; but no love
He peeled me off his skin like a leech
I bled as he slithered away
I wander the icy streets alone at night
And it’s Christmas in every window
Even their tears make me thirsty.

Bronwyn Manger

Description Of Pain

Grinding my teeth
on moaning concrete,
a face looks down
blocking the streetlight.

First forced reassurance,
then physical pain
a reminder of the damage
unnecessary guarantees can gain.

My body connected and where it all starts,
my base burning red,
makes centred ripples
spread up muscle and bone.

Paralysing chrome from the road
whilst glass nuggets pierce soft palm skin,
into my world came headlights,
tyres on wet bitumen, in my deafly auditorium

Dark in the lights,
Teeth piercing lip,
a doll lying bent
discarded and thrown.

Emma Kerin

Where is Wally?

Our postman has a snake.
He asks me to find skinks for it.
I’m not the only one he has asked.

Our postman tells my sister
he is into snake smuggling
and stolen motor-bike parts.

Our postman speeds down our driveway
and nearly crashes into the wall,
then he knocks on the door.

Our postman talks through his moustache
at our front door every school holidays
because he likes our steep drive-way.

He can’t understand why everyone else hates it
He laughs at the person who said
‘You’d have to be a mountain goat to live here.’

Our postman delivers mail to our front door
And told us his name was Wally.
That’s not his real name...it’s just in case someone complains.

Jagged

Mick is the man on the mountain
Would you stay up late and dance for him?
He’s not forever twenty-seven like Jimi, Janis, Jim or Kurt
Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?

Would you stay up late and dance for him?
Start me up: this will be the last time
Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?
Keith’s eyeliner has smudged.

Start me up , will this be the last time?
Ron and Charlie – time is on their side
Keith’s eyeliner has smudged
Champagne for thirst and a reefer to get high

Ron and Charlie – time is on their side
Mick is out of time, fond of the blues – sugar
Champagne for thirst and a reefer to get high
It’s a sold out tour – Rock ‘n Roll.

He is out of time, fond of the blues – sugar!
Not forever 27 like Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison or Cobain
It’s a sold out tour ah! Rock ‘n Roll
Mick is the man on the mountain.

Fiona Stuart

June

On her right breast
a bruise is fading at the edges
fingertip-size, above a chicken-pox
scar. Against the rice-paper surface
of her torso

it glowers yellow
a touch of jaundice
quickening the bloom of her chest.

He thinks it looks
like a semi-colon, perched above that scar;
and he lists all the things he could compare
her to. What he comes up with is
nothing. Still

he is beginning to learn a new grammar. She
is soft and curved as a parenthesis –
if he could cup her, she would not
slip limpid through his fingers. She is a parenthesis, she buys plums at the market, her name is June.

She has a little yellow bruise
above
her rice-paper breasts. A semi-colon,
he decides; a pause;

months later, when the weather is
bitter as her name
a pearl-white X-ray will complete the sentence.

Jessica Friedmann

Love All Nights

It starts with me
serving up a thought.
I throw it high into the air
and a beautiful serve
long into the court.
I am there to receive
my impressive first thought.
I look up, here it comes
and the match is on.
I volley the thought
Back and Forth, Back and Forth,
can’t seem to get a point
but still I persist.
Two hours in, it’s tiring
it’s hot, it’s annoying
the crowd is bored senseless
and yes, the linesmen
are getting comfortable
and eyes are shutting.
Traitors.
New balls please.
What ridiculous thought
will I find ?
I’ve got it.
My compulsive thoughts
are a learnt behaviour
from my mother.
Perfect !
Another huge shot.
Back and Forth, Back and Forth,
still no point.
A wild thought is on the court.
Would counting balls over the net
be helpful ?
Quiet please.
A realization sits on me.
I open my mouth
and I say it out loud-
Enough !
The thoughts, the court, disintegrate.
My mind is still
and a sign pops up:
Gone Sleeping.

Libby Charlton

Trampolines

And where we live will have trampolines
in the living room
because we always loved
flying.

And as we sail from room to room we’ll smile
to the music
that makes us happiest,
death cab for cutie.

I want to open the door every morning and see
you sitting
at the table with two cups
of tea.

I want the clocks to have no hands because
we have all
the time in the world
now.

Sometimes we will dance for no reason. Sometimes we will bounce extra high
and not come down.

And where we live will have trampolines
in the living room
because we’re grown-ups now,
and it’s our turn to decide what that means.

Rafael SW

Paul Newman

I don’t care if primrose is the new black
so long as black is still the old black
I don’t care if electro is the new punk and kilts
are the new sarongs and grapefruits are the new
rockmelons or if Fitzroy is the new St Kilda but Northcote
is the new Fitzroy and Footscray is the new Northcote –
except in so much as where does that leave Hallam?
Don’t care if The Darkness is the new Kiss
I wasn’t that fussed about the old Kiss
don’t care if beige is the new
drama queen of circumstantial evidence
or tunnel vision is the new autobiography
or karaoke is the new crack epidemic or Peacocks
are the new avant-grotesque circus midgets

I tell you I don’t care
why does everything have to be all the time new, improved?

Wine-bars are the new pubs – bowling alleys are the new wine-bars
abstinence is the new sex – sex is the new moralism
scars are the new piercing – coprophilia is the new dental hygiene
defeatism is the new Tony Danza – are you seeing my point?
Macramé is the new revolution perhaps
trivia is the new existentialism
road-kill is the new ingénue
and ingénues are the new car crash
but only Paul Newman is the new Paul Newman
the same as it ever was
because you just can’t fuck with Paul Newman

Steve Smart

Gratitude

I feel today my heart could sing!
I feel today the day might bring
A gift of sorts, for me to seek;
A gift at which I must not peek.

This day today, a day like none,
Was given me so I might run
Into the light, into the day;
To find a barn and roll in hay;

To take the day and squeeze the fun;
To stare up naked at the sun,
And take what god intended me;
To have a seat upon his knee;
He looks at me a look of glee,
And I say... ‘Love ya work!’

Sharona Radovsky