"The Sixties" [by James K. Baxter]

The Sixties
        for Louis Johnson

    'The icy dawn of the sixties'--
    Yes, you have it there.
    Today I saw a black sperm whale
    Rolled on the rocks at Pukerua Bay.   

    The stench grew loud as I came near,
    Gulls were grabbing at the kill.
    From that sleek projectile body
    Jutted a gigantic reddened phallus
    Mauled by the Cook Strait squid.   

    Under the sunset fires it seemed to be
    The body of our common love
    That bedrooms, bar rooms never killed,
    The natural power behind our acts and verses
    Murdered by triviality.   

    -- James K. Baxter

James K. Baxter is a New Zealand poet. This poem was adjudged the most "phallic and phallogocentric" of one hundred finalists by our trucking-mama troika of major truth-fucking mammals on balconies above angels behind archways between alleys in the blazing afternoon.