Bashing through the mallee posts

Ella recommended Cordite years ago and, in my sluggish fashion I finally got around to looking into what I could submit. It turns out that they were featuring the granddad of literary hoax figures, Ern Malley, or more correctly:

The Children of Ern Malley

(1) Creature comforts encroaching we stretch
Bug-eyed burghers beckoning
We don't budge an inch

(2) Although you presaged the Post-sages
Who came in at all different stages
Twittering feast on the clime
We'll all get there given time

We dined on your un/funny infamy
Intent with gaunt application
Swapped pseudonyms and stories
Not bothered that
Someday
We did not/will not exist

That was the first draft of thoughts. I followed that soon after with:

Plenty of Mallees Out In the Scrub

Who knew that someone so serious
Could be so illusory
Evasive and elusive
To the point of non-existence

Flowery language on unfallowed ground
Still a place for swanning around
Leaving angry penguins
and there surrounds

All along a column shift
For the most abstract of gifts
Taken to the cleaners
OR
Taken to the Max

This was more along the line of what I hoped to contribute; not just writing in the Malley style but referencing the events surrounding the whole controversy. Now I just needed to add a couple of unrelated pieces

Malley's Twisted Branches

Two people putting together poseur despair
Peripatetic poets taken the piss
This could not have existed otherwise
This non-existence

Malley Foul

A huge mound of gathered debris
Used to incubate
The male bird sits

[nom de Malleys: Mallee Boy, Boy Mallee, O. Mallee, Norm Malley, Euchre Lyptus
'Norm Malley wouldn't do this']



A few pages - and 23 days - later I did my second drafts; by this stage having ditched the initial piece, having opted for the pun to play off to best effect, yet again

Mallee's Twisted Branches

Putting together poseur despair
Peripatetic poets
Taking the piss
That could not have existed otherwise
This non-existence

Mallee Foul

A mound of gathered debris
Used to incubate
Atop of which
The male bird sits

Plenty of Mallees In The Scrub

Flowering on unfallowed ground
The spot to swan around
Penguins angered in these surrounds

All along the column shift
The most abstract of gifts
Taken to the cleaners
Taken to the max


Seven days later and five pages later I reworked that third piece in third and fourth drafts

Mallees in the Bush

Flowering on unfallowed ground
The spot to swan around
Penguins, angered in these surrounds

All along the column shift
Was the most abstract of gifts
Taken to the cleaners
Ha ha
Taken to the Max

Mallees in the Scrub

Flowering on unfallow'd ground
The place to swan around
Penguins, angered in these surrounds

All along the column shift
Was the most abstract of gifts
Taken to the cleaners
Chortle
Taken to the Max


When I checked back in with Cordite (still not having composed my biog) I was greeted with the news that submissions had closed! Being the good sports that they are, they posted my wail of protest or despair (not sure which) at having reached final draft but 'missing the post'; they even replied with commisurations. So I will be better organised for next issue's big idea and, in the meantime, hope this blow-by-blow illuminated something in one writer's process, even if readers aren't convinced at the dedication.