The mountain cried as water fell

For the country was racing towards hell

My friend

You chose not to dream any more

And die at the time of your choosing

Avoiding lanes of rubbish-piles decomposing

And old factories being demolished

From leaky roof to the rotten floor

As small precious houses are vanished

To the glory of high rise with low ceilings

Office cabinets spew abandoned dealings

Replaced by the super intelligence haven

Of artificial data centres awakening

While the bus is filling up with old men

Awaiting departure to the underworld

The last station beyond our only end

The sugar mills pump steam and smoke

In the glorious Queensland blue air 

My friend

Promoting tooth decay with sweets for children

Cancer, insulin vagaries, aches and stroke

Jam, cakes, chocolates and a McDonald’s bun

The sickness becoming a One-Nation affair 

An assault on Aussie values from Hanson the Hun

Sponsored by Gina and cheap tinted hair

Making our escape other than death threatened 

Cos’ the battery of my scooter has flattened

For too long going in the wrong direction

Like you probably pointing towards oblivion

Life is one hundred per cent twisted to the left

According to the chemistry Nobel Prize reveal

My friend

Half our nitrogen has been industrialised 

Into crop fertilisers and nitratic bombs

We rape the earth’s remaining wombs

Plastic flowers boast their importance

Insects survive pesticide malfaisance

Weeds resist the roundup trickery

Spring becomes boiling summer

Summer cracks like an earth-fire

Drying mud becomes old rocks

Murderers and crooks escape the docks

Demented leaders beat the clocks

Nevertheless it is worth living painlessly

Beyond weird beliefs and skewed history

Good bye we’ll never meet again

Au revoir hasta la vista Auf Wiedersehen

My friend

You avoided the torture of medical cure

To prolong your life by ten more years to endure

Depriving the hospices of your custom

Needing cash to clean old men’s bottom

Politics become more savage by the days

American members in corrupt moronic daze

Old women become pregnant to unique child

Due to miracles of modern medicine wild

So you missed on the Nobel prize for the best smile

Unlike the very sad face of the Literary winner

Catching the wind in Iceland with a rictus bile

Her pleasure and pain of desire If Not Winter

As you played your last game of letters

By adding the correct total of numbers

Vale, my friend…

               ROBERT URBANOSKI — 9 OCTOBER 2026