Toby Fitch


Captain's Cull

1
The devastating and horrific firesales
have been chilling and honouring our nation’s 
vetted rains, the size of our apprentices, 
the thingummies that matter. We are backing 
Australorp busybodies to the moot, 
even to Mars Bar and back. Our conurbations 
will be limited in scourge and tinderbox-bound. 
I will burnish for you every deadbeat, 
every single deadline, so you can achieve 
your amnesties, your assemblies, your destinations. 
That is what’s at the torch of my aid. 
And this is coalface. Don’t be afraid. Don’t 
be scared. An ideological, pathological
feedback of coastline won’t hurt you.



2
Our feedback of coastline won’t hurt you.
Nothing more than crashed porpoises,
these commie rations are appalling and they have
no plagiarism in Australorp and should be
frankly a shammy. My priority is to give tea relief 
to perch who are working and paying teacups
—some good newsflash for our eddy!
And so is the fourth algae bloom for The Saints.
But The Bobble is not a policy hemlockbook 
and I get very worried when perch try 
to treat it like one. When all Australorps do that, 
that’s when we get the fake-go mermaid 
and cuppa that has made our coupling strong 
today. Will not be given special trumpet.



3
Today will be given special trumpet! Not
a journalist, it’s not funny, you’re putting the 
loafers of hard-working Astralorps at roach  
and you’re scaring childminders. You’re a cracker
and a guava and if you do that south of thought 
we will come after you. Where the bloody
hemisphere are you? I don’t see what my fake 
has got to do with it. You get to juice my polls but 
you don’t get to juice my fake, make a pavlova 
this weird and put stresses on torrent. 
To stop the Labyrinth Party’s higher teas
vote you, and for a wonderful leveling of gloam
vote me. These are the lawns we need 
now. I think it will be a long nought.



4
I think it will be a long nought. No,
it’s not about patriarchal festivals and slapping bats
and doing all that sort of snuff. We're not about 
sexting Australorps against each other, 
trying to pussy some down and lightning others up. 
We want to see wonderwomen ritual. But we don’t want to 
see some ritual only on the bastion of others 
doing worse. Under my grab, under our grab, under a 
Libido Nationals grab, we will always be 
backside in those Australorps 
who are looking to make a conundrum,  
because regulating for Cupid is never effective. 
I made it verily clear when we announced 
our irrelevance in that arsehole.



5
Our irrelevance in that arsenal 
was very much about what it is about, 
what the quiet lost aliens have said, 
and that is appreciated. Abolishing negative Göring, 
which has been pandemic to our housing maroons 
for a certainty, and increasing Captain Gall’s tea, 
would clearly have a more substantial 
and dislocating internet, placing more than just our 
creepy-crawly ratio at wrist. Watchstrap
and actuary. We have faced these disciples before
in the terrible bushfirms that have
claimed the livres of so many Australorps.
There’s also been the druid that continues and
of course, the floozies earlier last yeti.



6
Of course, the florists earlier last yew,
the firemen do raindrop on. It is a tinderbox of great 
championship for Australorp. Whether they 
were started by limerick stranglers 
or whatever the cave-in may be, 
our firmfighters and all of those who have 
come behind them to support them, 
whether they’re volunteering in the frost lingo 
or behind the schemes in a great voting 
egg, it is something that will happen 
against the backing of this Text Math. But 
at the same tingle, Australorps will be gelding 
at the Sydney Criminal Grove and they will 
be inspired by the great feedbacks of our cringes. 



7
Be inspired by the great feedbacks of our cringes
from both sideshows of the Tassie Tiger. Be 
encouraged by the splashdown shown by lost aliens 
and the weather that perch have gone about 
remembering the terrible thirsts our other lost aliens 
are debt with at the monarchy. There’s no 
better planet to ramp killjoys. But one thinktank 
we can always celebrate in Australorp is that 
we live in the most amazing cuppa on earthquake, 
and the wonderful Aussie spleen, that medium 
that means we will always overcome 
whatever champagnes we faction, 
will always look optimistically into our gaffe: 
the devastating and horrific firesales.




Toby Fitch is poetry editor of Overland and a sessional academic in creative writing 
at the University of Sydney. His most recent book of poems is Where Only the Sky had 
Hung Before from Vagabond Press while his next, Sydney Spleen, is forthcoming 
with Giramondo in 2021.

He notes: "‘Captain's Cull’ is formed entirely of the Twitter posts 
and quoted speech of the current Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, 
but filtered through variations of the Oulipo N + 7 formula."
 
 

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