Contacting Clancy

I've been on a bit of an Australian Bush Poetry binge recently.  (I haven't been on a similar blog-writing binge, but you knew that already.)  It started with a poem I wrote as a competition entry but there was more in the tank after I'd finished, so I kept on writing.

Do you remember Banjo Paterson's poem Clancy of the Overflow?  It starts with the writer sending a letter to Clancy's last known address but receiving a return letter that Clancy has gone droving in Queensland and couldn't be contacted.  That inspired me to write this parody about trying to contact Clancy in a digital age and coming up dry.

Contacting Clancy

I had written him an email which I’d filled with gripping detail,

Then I took my list of Contacts and I searched it through and through.

The address I had looked decent, but it wasn’t awful recent:

I had clancy-o@lachlan, then dot-com then dot-au.

As soon as I had sent it and had settled back, contented,

My inbox notified me of immediate reply.

‘Twas an automated message that confirmed my dismal presage:

“Clancy’s taken leave of absence, gone to Queensland, FYI.”

So I check his Linked-In profile, and in classic Clancy O-style

He has many email contacts but I dunno where they’re from.

So which one of these addresses is his current? My best guess is

I should try the first one: clancy-o@overflow.com.

And although it’s quite a long shot that he’d find a wireless hotspot

I could try his Hotmail, Bigpond or his DrovingLife-dot-co.

Any case, with bush as backdrop, I can’t see him on his laptop

‘Cause he’s jolly hard to contact, Clancy, of ‘The Overflow’.

- Ukulele Jutsum © 2013.