Australia Day Plea

I've just seen 'Pride and Prejudice', but feel no great compunction
To swan around a vicarage, with tea and cakes for luncheon;
Though buying oil from Saudis, we decline to put their robes on,
And as for German influence - do you wear lederhosen?
With tourist Nipponese folk, we oft enjoy a caper,
Yet feel no pressure to bed down in houses made of paper;
And Kiwis are our cousins, (or, something of that kidney),
But which of us would say 'Tum Funn hud fush un' chups un Sudney?"

Yet faced with things American, we quickly shout surrender;
To nothing and to no-one do we say 'return to sender'
By emulating crows outback, we'd pick, and fly, unseen;
But no! We down the bloody lot, and, wiping our plates clean,
Sit and wait with mouths agape, while turning in their clay,
Are Lawson and The Banjo; they counted on the day
When Austral earth alone would generate our due reward;
Alas! When faced with 'Die Hard 9', this soon goes overboard

Before I'm tagged 'elitist' though, just let me up and say,
It's us I'm criticising, not the Good Ol' U.S.A.
Because!!! ...

...If a drive-in church for rattlesnakes works well for Amarillo,
And the governor of Texas is in fact an armadillo;
If kids are nick-named 'JJ', 'PJ', 'VD' and 'BO',
And, in northern California, Martians host a TV show;
If songs like 'Mah dawg shot me', top the country music charts,
By rhinestone-studded has-beens and their silicon-happy tarts;
If 'fun' in Blackfoot, Idaho, means sitting up a pillar,
And for buying twelve Macmuffins, you can sleep with Phyllis Diller;
If every ning-nong's got a gun, and some constructing forts,
and the IQ of both parties is a sorry trail of noughts;
If, down in Mississippi, men can be their own relations,
With a fondness for farm animals that verges on Tasmanian;
If everybody's favourite food is fat, deep fried in fats,
And the Average Adult Arse-Cheek measures sixteen baseball bats;
If Grumman's Chinese Theatre has a cast of Nixon's nose,
And parts of Dolly Parton are inflatable by hose;
If a nudist team from Portland, Maine is set to climb Ben Nevis,
And a man in east Missouri grows potatoes in his crevice;
Then who are we - and who am I? - to get all snide and stroppy?
I only plead; Australia Fair! Advance - don't look and copy!

Copyright; Evan Elpus