tonight. on noongar land
there is a sweet noise
rolling in at the horizon
just under the raw clouds
it’s a thin sound
and we’re speaking in verse, always traverse
its two steps forward, another in reverse
PREACH
we’re building walls with words
to stop the hate
picking locks with uttered stanzas
to unhinge the gates
we carpet bomb villages
with poems of peace
pieces of poems
setting fire in the streets
and they’re shouting in ink on tabloid stands
we’re rapid-writing poetry
without blood on our hands
yeah this rhymes – sometimes
and i’ll add another syllable
to kill the pain, another rant
that capital is not a god
but it is
and all real words are revolutions
a ceaseless reververation
a circle of lives
twisting, resisting – then
listening to these birds
in a wardong suburb
that chiddy-chiddy, koolbardie
calling to a mate
and in the gargantuan bitumen silence
my keyboard is a whispered pistol
a semi-automatic word doc
shot at Israeli tanks
cutting cable ties in Kimberly driveways
the salt across my turned cheek
and we’re speaking in verse, always traverse
its two steps forward, another in reverse x2 – PREACH
we are the sweetest poems for Malala, Gaza
we are silent words for children, babies
women, men, boys, girls, the ungendered, the transgendered
the unborn – and the dead
because those without words
cannot speak
and there it is…
that sweet rolling noise
gets louder, close at the horizon
at the wet western edge
we remember these splintered boats
will never be stopped
never be finished
oceans swallow children,
and gods, and the stateless
their final breaths… …
that heartbeat… .. .. .. ..
we are all boat people
eventually, she says
and we tell their stories
to the phablet swipers
moderating snipers
with ballistic sentences
paragraphs from trees
and stolen trucks performing on freeway bridges
in the blistered streets, in traffic
in bloody solidarity with the strikers
begging our special-offer one-time-only one-percenters
the never ever dissenters
but we are. we are poets
awake at the edge of the battle
and art is a hammer – not a mirror
and we’re speaking in verse, always traverse
its two steps forward, another in reverse x3 – PREACH
at school, here in the sunburnt country
history is a jigsaw of missing pieces
fragments of forgotten warriors
within these girted shores
not even a tent embassy mention
or a yagan
or a jandamarra
in our yarns
never told
see, educators
need to tell truths
even if they hurt
and these poets here tonight
need to bleed
to witness
to feed their lines
and we listen, heed
and wait for sirens
and guns and riot cops
to conserve the status quo
and nothing will change
without our new old words
our speech patterns against their batons
under the jack boot
we scream their isolated freedom
AZADI from money
bleeding too much concrete and glass and steel
another road to nothing nothing nothing
another freeway to invisibility
the illusion of tranquility
is nothing nothing nothing
yet we hear the sweetest noise coming…
and we’re speaking in verse, always traverse
its two steps forward, another in reverse x4
two steps forward, another in reverse…
PREACH PREACH
PREACH PREACH
PREACH
in verse