Ken Bolton Happy Accidents Little Esther: $10-$13, 30 pp. Serendipity (life as magic) - the smiling tradesman at the lights in the rainbow-stickered ute, not the bulletheaded guy in the park who "just wants some decent cock" - but that's my life ... in the 70's, when we were reading Agatha Christie, Abba/Blondie lyrics, doing homework, going to the farm weekends, what were Ken and co. reading? '... some poets ... who were supposed to be good ... ' 'Then did I breathe in / A speck of muesli ...' (Like Marcia Hines) I've got it in me too. After the porridge that came before, came Forbes (John) and Duggan (Laurie). Something like Kiki Dee giving Elton a boot up the bum, or perhaps not. Before we got the order to clear out the cats ' ... then [Forbes] went in for removing ... ' (my brackets): ' ... [screenprinting, later film teaching] Pam Brown's poems / Still in my hand ...' (my brackets). '"Head first into the beautiful accident."' Quoting Tranter. 'Head first into the beautiful accident.' Anarchy for the O.Z. Re-reading the past as serendipity: for the princes(ses) of the faith. What were they doing? 'Alan Wearne' came 'down the banister,' 'Carol Novack ... played pool ... took up Law,' 'Adders attacked everybody ...,' 'Terry's spit narrowly missing the Prime / Minister / etcetera'. (Seeing calf's ear 'F's litter the ground. Nothing.) ' ... better, if not ... actually 'well', till around 1976 ...' '... the dole ...' 'John Forbes worked in a tinsel factory.' Australia. What were they thinking really? '"Poetry - it'll be bigger than tennis,"' (50 Ways To Get Out Of Sport.) '"The ambience is all around us"'. ' ... & the steel and irony of Robbe-Grillet ...' ' ... a total fucking gas ...' ''Mogul'' What were they on? ' ... domesticity ...' (I filled up on bread.) ' ... David Bowie ...' '(Tranter must have come into some money ...)' ' ...Ashbery ...' ' ... the Robert Lowell and Bob Dylan attack ...' Or the '... O'Hara... ' mantra. '"The European Shoe" by Michael Benedikt ...' John's feet. 'Phillip Whalen ... Tony Towle ... Jesus Christ or John the Baptist ... the ideas I entertained about Johns and Rauschenberg ... R n B ... John Coltrane ... ' KISS goes without saying, of course - but by then it was the 80s, and everyone was keeping their apostrophes to themselves. MICHAEL FARRELL has been published recently by Meanjin, Cordite and The Australian, and has work forthcoming in Calyx: 30 Contemporary Australian Poets, Overland, The Age, Verse and Slope #7.