his words were the same muddle of sentiment,
self-aggrandisement and revisionism
casting back to that long dry right
(that’s not how i remember it)
but how aged that boyish familiar:
on screen he was paper-thin,
the evening metro skyline
sparkled through his shoulders.
Image: Members of the first federal ministry of Australia, 1902, National Archives of Austraila: A1200, LI3365. A quadrille for dverse where De is hosting and asks us to write on ‘muddle’. And here’s Satellite of Love – ‘I love to watch things on tv’
Peter Frankis writes 
I like how you contrast the subject’s manipulative rhetoric with his charming appearance. Great complement to the photo.
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Thanks Frank.
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My pleasure, Peter! 🙂
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The muddle of politicians is pretty much all the same mantra! He must have been really thin to see the skyline sparkling through his shoulders!!
Dwight
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Thanks Dwight, yeah, thin as his worn out ideas 😀
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I LOVE the descriptions in this. and “muddle of sentiment” is awesome!
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I think there is a specific art in making a muddle seem clear… You have painted it well.
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This is incredibly potent!
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The phrase “he was paper-thin” is a brutal indictment. Gosh, what a phrase you’ve cooked up there.
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“his words were the same muddle of sentiment,”–could apply to so many.
Well done. They look like so smug.
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I like this phrasing: “how aged that boyish familiar”
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Thanks Frank – a favourite of mine too.
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“Dancing before the cameras once more”
Reading your title, and the poem…reminds me sadly that history repeats itself. I’m just hoping we come soon to another part of the circle.
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These words fit the rhetoric of our times so well: “muddle of sentiment,
self-aggrandisement and revisionism” and from what I heard on the radio this morning, blatant confabulation is another trend.
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Oh yeah :-).
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