Ern Malley. A frisson of text.

Detail of Ern Malley, painting by Sidney Nolan, from Collected Poems paperback cover.

….
We will be wraiths and wreaths of tissue-paper
To clog the Town Council in their plans.
Culture forsooth! Albert, get my gun.

….
But in all of this I got no culture till
I read a little pamphlet on my thighs
Entitled: ‘Friction as a social process’

Ern Malley.
Extract from Culture as Exhibit. Circa 1943.
Collected Poems, Angus & Robertson, 1993.