OK, I’m committed to a stanza a day for the rest of the month. Yesterday I built on end-rhymes from a stanza n Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate. Today, back to the source of the Onegin stanza: Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, as translated by James E Falen. The arbitrarily chosen stanza that supplied the rhymes is in Chapter Two.
The verse picked up on my recent reading of some correspondence about Laura Tingle’s Quarterly Essay, Follow the Leader, and a conversation about the Extinction Rebellion in the UK.
November verse 11: On fair dinkum politics
The dream of being ruled by sages
is defunct. There on the crest
of Parliament Hill a wildfire rages.
No charm can soothe that savage breast
whose fuse is blown by power surges,
trust’s betrayed by carnal urges.
Far too many old white men
talk only to themselves and then
they watch Sky News. Is there a swelling
cloud to quench that toxic flame,
to make that coal-fired monster lame
and save our sweet blue planet-dwelling?
You want a hero? Save your breath!
It’s all together now – or death!
Me fail? I fly! 
D’accord! Y’know, being a person of “a certain age” I look across the chambers (Lower of Reps – Upper of Senators) and they all look like as if they’ve just left school. They are clever with their words back and forth – waving their legalese with ease – but of true life’s experience and compassion for others – little from the mob currently sitting on the government benches. The Punishers, The Bullies – the Negativists! The robbers of our fair dinkum rights – treasonous to us all (except their Gina, Twiggy and other mega-billionaire buddies)! That’s what I think – thanks for asking! But how strident my prose – your verse smooth!
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Talk to themselves and then watch Sky News… O how true!
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