Open letter to Jennifer Maiden

I think this is a poem, but the chances of anyone else publishing it are very slim, so here it is, blogged.

Open letter to Jennifer Maiden
Dear Jennifer, please write about Kevin
and Julia. The best I could manage
was a clerihew when they won the election:
oooKevin Rudd
ooomay be a bit of a fuddy-dud
ooobut at least we’ll no longer be showered
ooowith the duplicitous spittle of Howard.
But now that he’s backed off
from tackling climate change
and Julia’s refusing
to talk to the teachers’ unions
we need something stronger
and wiser
than my easy rhymes  –
a muddy rabbit, mesmerised by moonlight,
a studied habit, of playing to the polls,
or bloody sabot-age.
Couldn’t you write us something
about the way his top lip tightens
or hers curls,
her pontifical drawl, his parsonical clip?
Something like your George’s
lethal little injections and your Condi’s
costume jewellery, to help us see them
as human?

Jennifer Maiden’s poems that this refers to explicitly are ‘Together We Will a Cheese Achieve‘ and ‘Costume Jewellery‘ both in Friendly Fire.