A New Hobart Stadium? – Lost for Words

I’ve been lost for words about this abysmal stadium business, struggling to find a way to describe the

monstrosity

aberration

hideousness

bane of the southern seas

eyesore

grotesquerie

absurd AFL awfulness

malconformity

chunderglump

mutilated immensity of barren capitalism

that they desire to loom like a lecherous child abuser that escaped the Commission of Inquiry, drooling gambling and junk food ads from its neon-lit craw, over our historic town and harbour

But yeah, it’s a thing, admittedly a thing without a plan nor design nor proper costing, more a vague idea (with a roof!), a newly-fledged moth waved through by the jazz-hands of a drunk air traffic controller, a quid-pro-kowtow, an inkling, a

half-baked croissant crumb of shit

waft of corporate grift

tittle (itty bitty microlittle)

quark of brainfart

stench

redolence of blokeyness

nubbin

trinket of ambition

(Mac) Point(less) pong

toxic chokedamp

that scares the bejupiter out of me, as if urban renovation should hide under the skirts of a likely-underutilised coliseum collecting windblown rubbish and seagull crap 330 days a year

It’s not just about the money, it’s about the loss of opportunity, the AFL’s bully headlock while they steal our lunch money for the next twenty years, the overwhelming sense that’s it’s a

bogan boondoggle

dockside fustercluck

financial quagmire

hairy butt-end of misplaced ambition

Certified Imbroglio by the River, served with pan-seared Hype with hooley-dooley coulis

force-fed footy fiasco

bastard child of pulp mill

cesspit of guffawing yes-men

huckster-stump (STT coupe 1984)

carpetbaggers’ bagatelle

and not something that has arisen, organically, from the collective desires of the people … your people, my people, we the people

Possibly we might be on board if the Premier had thought it wise to consult before putting the Poor Wee State a billion dollars in hock: perhaps a talk with Cabinet, a tête-à-tête avec Treasurie, for Macquarie’s sake even a howzyerfather with Hobart residents, or anybody really even, but all we got was

secrecy

lies

obfuscation writ large in disappearing ink

you-can’t-ask-that!

misdirection

accused of not wanting the dream, because we similarly don’t want the (stadium) nightmare

spindoctorisms, spindoctored either in-house or outsorcered for fifty grand a handshake

opaqueness, as if looking through a veil of money

denial (neither a river in Africa, nor lutruwita)

‘shut up you don’t know what’s good for you’

as if public engagement by jingoistic bumper sticker passes the pub test, even in footyland, where feasts come rarely, where hard-won means hard bloody won you glazed ham in a suit, where even a rock island in a river bend halted a nation

And so I might be upset, but no, for I have seen the fagus turning, and loved this heart-shaped island, and struggled with her capriciousness dammit, and it’s pretty obvious already to us blockers not barfbuilders that this project is

circling the drain

moribung it up your arse, Gil McLachlan

clog-popped

a Monthy Python ex-parrot

ready to be fitted for a body bag

sleeping with fishes, probably invasive Pacific starfish but yanno it’s the thought that counts

belly/paws/floodlights up

fallen off the twig of Liberal wankdom

ticketed one-way for Marble Park, possibly via the underground bus mall

supercooled to lost-our-majority temperature

and that’s that; call me when it’s proper buried, like the Ralph’s Bay marina, like the brochured bulldust of the cable car, like the old admin building now sprouting hotels and inner city life, and when the one-eyed footy fans with about as many teeth are are booing and baying for the head of the coach, or the CEO, hey Rocky, hey …

Alan Whykes is a published poet, a fan of many sports, and has attended several AFL matches, Test and Sheffield Shield cricket, and community events and festivals at Hobart’s actual AFL stadium, Bellerive Oval.