Definitions

Les Murray

Effete: a pose

of Palace cavalry officers

in plum Crimean fig,

spurs and pointed boots,

not at all the stamp

of tight-buttoned Guards

executing arm-geometry

in the shouting yards,

but sitting his vehicle

listening to tanks change gears

amid oncoming fusiliers

one murmurs the style

that has carried his cohort

to this day, and now will test them:

You have to kill them, Giles,

you can’t arrest them.

Les Murray (NSW) is one of Australia’s leading poets. His work has been published in ten languages. In 1999 he was awarded the Queens Gold Medal for Poetry on the recommendation of Ted Hughes.

Definitions was written by Les Murray in response to Dale Hickey’s Painting 1968 in the Newcastle Region Art Gallery collection.