By Barddylbach
Australians may have forgotten what happened on Halloween already, but it may be harder to forget this will be the fifth consecutive Christmas the Australian Federal Government has imprisoned refugees in offshore mandatory detention. New cabins on a remote hostile island while families, women and children languish on another is not freedom, it is not justice, it is not human and it is not what a civil or free democratic society does to others, when no laws have been broken. It is the tyranny of deterrence to be punished for something someone else might do some time in the future! It does not stop boats, it is unlawful abuse and a crime against humanity.
Bottling Flies to Tear Off Their Wings: Overseas to Nemesis
We skipped and ran on lush front lawns and flower beds,
tinkered treats for sprinklers in haunted fancy dress,
we advertised the Hollywood dream fair go.
They came in boats from overseas to Nemesis,
tricked or trapped offshore like unwanted insects in the
bottom of jam jars baking in our fire and sun.
So we plucked their wings and sucked the life out of them,
bowled them into cardboard boxes and plastic bottles
‘under the bed they go’ where we forgot about them.
The spider in its splendid nylon web spat and spied,
children spilled out into our playground bleeding cried,
doting parents high on scones and custard creams look on.
I watched him pop that cork and screw it back down again,
parliamentary bullies and sycophants the lot of them
pompous pimp and poke their fingers until they fry.
In unmarked graves stolen children, a ruthless lie
and we skip over them, mauled, mocked and nationless!
We tread their broken wings on lush front lawns and
flower beds with picket fences many towers high.
Beneath beds abandoned we forgot the genocide,
torn and shredded, limbless, boneless, pitiless
we look on, in almighty dissonance needless frown
overseas to Nemesis, my god they bleed, burn and drown
And just like us they die.
Manus was an example of just how retarded our government is, and just how cowardly we have become, the treatment of these poor people is nothing short of embarrassing, I can’t abide politicians their the lowest form of life on the planet
Ruthless poem…good stuff…This year I went to a funeral for an indigenous person at Raukkan on the shores of Lake Alexandrina…The cemetery there on top of a wind-swept hill is beautifull on weather good days, bleak on bad days…it you go to Google Earth-satellite, you can see the graves there now, but if you look closely, you can see the many graves that are unmarked as blurred outlines just under the soil…it is quite a picture and tells, in itself, quite a story.. Google ; “Raukkan cemetery. SA.”
Could not see anything except grey earth and green trees but there were lines at right angles to the lake, on the shore. Were these graves? It looks pretty bleak
Hi Joseph, what does it take to shake the complacency and indifference of society, especially a society that is heading down the cause of its previous misspent youth and dismantling its barely noble and fragile constitution of common-law civil rights and rule of law, not to mention international laws and conventions? Shock and satire is that all we have when appeals for humanity fall on deaf ears?
We uphold ANZAC but ridicule Indigenous genocide in our own country, we sign UN Human Rights conventions and ignore genocide in other countries, hell we even make war in other countries and then deny the exodus of the afflicted and dispossessed. We cannot even settle the poverty and exploitation in our own country, far less treat refugees from others. Forever repeating history, one step forward two step[s back because now we are more destructive on a population scale. Unmarked graves and silent history, history only of the victor and abuser are symptoms of our heartlessness. The vanquished too are nationless and forgotten, the living and the dead.
Enjoy your articles, stories and commentaries by the way 🙂