Ned Kelly's Tulip

An incredible script.
Not just the armour
making him into a walking chimney
after a bushfire through the old weatherboards.
Not the row with the judge over who
would see whom in St. Peter's
homestead. Or the urgency of a verdict
before the Melbourne Cup.

The start of the hanging
before the trial & during the trial
the stakeouts, the shootouts in living colour
not on Ned's word, he didn't
put in a word in his own defence,
the director's, the producer's
the actor's word?---a face
more famous than Ned himself

or the narrator's?---the male model
who jumps into the nineteenth century courtroom
in his twentieth century wardrobe & browbeats
the judge for censoring Ned's letter,
apologizing to the young counsel
while implying it's Ned's
neck not his
even if he's
doing his
best.

At least it's ocker, stroppy, Australian;
all those references to
the Wombat Ranges.
Unmistakeable.

On his way to standing erect in mid-air
the crim, the crook, the gangster
Edward Kelly takes a look at a tulip.
His last. Also his first? Who knows?
A cliche, says the critic juryman.
So it has come to this.

Good on yer, Ned.