1986-1990: These are some of my better early poems. If I wrote poems like this today I might not be happy with them. Nevertheless I think they have a strength and character of their own and are worth including if only to compare with my later work.

Billboard Girl

A made-up girl.
I think she wasn’t born.
I think she was made up

from a media blueprint.
I think she’s just a TV ad
that came off the screen and onto the street.

A fashion plate.
I’m sure she’s synthetic.
I’m sure they fabricated her

to show the latest look.
I’m sure they glued the newest clothes
to the current make-up and hair, and there she was.

A perfect ‘10’.
I know she can’t be real.
I know she’s only transient

with nothing on the inside.
I know that in six months
she’ll be gone. Replaced by the new model.

(First published in Demented Bliss, Central Coast Poetry Society, Queensland 1990)

published 2010/06/05 in Proximity / Writing / Poems / 1986-1990
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