Wilson Tuckey, I love you man
the way you look over your glasses
as you kick those journos’ arses
I love your hairy nostrils and your square double chin
but most of all I love the way you know everythin’
not a skerrick of doubt, any subject, any time
you can hold forth. you’re ready to chime

Wilson Tuckey, I love you man
you don’t need no research. no need to hold back
here is your wisdom, you’re on the attack
here is the gospel according to Tuckey
you front them with macho, you front them so plucky
you tell them the answers straight from the heart
they look like stunned mullets as you take them apart

Wilson Tuckey, I love you man
you run rings round those greenies, those tree hugging ****
with their talk about warming, their climate change glum
I trust you Wilson, you know better than them
you can leave them all gobstruck with a home spun gem

Wilson Tuckey, I love you man
you can spot a terrorist at a hundred paces
the ones with the beards and the slightly dark faces
we don’t want them here taking our jobs and houses
with their Qurans and burqas and baggy white trousers

Wilson Tuckey, I love you man
you show us what it means to be Australian
some call you redneck, some say you’re not cool
but you are our bedrock, you are no fool
you are the brown substance of this wide, sunburnt land
and that’s why, Wilson Tuckey, I really, really, really love you man.

Have the *****

the SPIRIT

the SPINAL BONES stacked strong and straight

Have the GUMPTION

the STRENGTH

Have the JAW to take a knock for honesty

Have the FREEDOM

for goodness sake

Don’t tell me what you should

tell me something REAL

Say what I know you’re thinking,

Say it LOUD

Be proud of your thought

think for yourself

Throw a curveball of integrity

into the conversation

leading to apathy

Say it with your EYES

as well as your lips

Don’t just mouth the words

like some mechanical clone

People need to push up against your SOUND

Rub lies up the wrong way

stop saying what is safe

Try to match untruth

WORD for WORD

with the straight, black, hard line

that runs right through people’s shifting eyes

Be UNCOMFORTABLE

UNCOMPROMISING

Speak your words like a gift to heads starved

for RIGHT

Speak up man

Speak up to the man

Let your speech slam against the grain

don’t be a fool swimming with the tide

give people the PEARLS of your mind

Don’t ever  be blinded

for the sake of a world

without a spine

Say the words

that have been buried deep

under a pile of correctness

and say them

NOW.




© 2012 Zoe Tuckey

I'm back, after a 45 year
absence, part fugitive,
part ostracised, part exile.

" A lot has changed, since
             you left "

As if it needed to be brought
to my attention.

It is what remains, is of interest
to me, because the only constant
in life is change. No points for that
I am afraid.

Becoming American and having
a nice day, with the same climate
as was here when I left, is not the
attraction one think's it is.

The Clock House is no longer
reading five past six, the iconic
time it read as I was parting.

A semaphoric symbolism, which
verbalised, meant, get to hell out
of here, a request, rather than a
friendly suggestion.

So, what's home if everything has
been altered, including myself, as
I no longer drink!

Hmmm let me think ??

Buckley Brothers on Tuckey Hill,
is still here, the last bastion of
the Mallow I remember.

An oasis for sentiment, nostalgia,
tradition, where one can still look,
for what, you are not expecting to
find, (time), the essence of our being,
where the lost protocol of our past,
is still practiced, politely.


Ps.

Buckley Brothers is a hardware
in Mallow County Cork Ireland.
If it could be Trip Advised, 5*.