backpacker - Geoffrey Aitken

i

can no longer 

fool myself

on bus

& train travel

pretending

to be a tourist

face

against the glass

in window watch distance

from

suburban collateral

on

public transport

i just can’t

Originally published in Tamba, Issue 70, June 2022 by Goulburn Valley Writers

Social conscience driven, my writing asks younger readers, excluded in formal curriculum-based poetry classes to identify workable self-expression, engage with current stark industrially stylised minimalist images, devised to invite the freedom to annotate with a spirited reminder I am an observer with a wry working-class humour, maintained from a respectful distance.

Geoffrey Aitken writes on Adelaide’s unceded Kaurna land, an awarded minimalist poet freeing his ‘lived experience disability’ for publishers [AUS] and [UK, US, HR, CAN, FR & CN]. Recently, ‘Verge Anthology’ – [Monash Uni AUS], ‘unusual work’ [AUS], ‘the engine(idling’ [US], ‘Underbelly Press’ [UK], ‘The Broken City [CAN] and soon, ‘Social Alternatives’ [AUS]. Nominated Best of the Net in 2022.