you need to listen

you need to listen

up here, trapped fast in a two-minute frame

we take turns telling truth tales

to the tyrants

on this sacred whadjuk boodjar

never ceded

we spit sonic bits

of poems on stages

and we rhyme from ridiculous cages

and you breathe them in like a structured simile

all our untamed industrial assonance

are a means of resistance – a metaphor for no war

writ red across the opera house

all our complaints, echoes inside social platforms

spell-checked and spoken we sing songs of genocide

from the river to the sea

from banksia hill to the gnamma holes

we write words in the wet suburban streets

bold statements in the brutal black bitumen sun

and you need to listen

as the coldest hearts still beat

and we dropped banners from capital balconies

glued ourselves to the uniforms

we swore at the smiling suited hardhats

the cameras, the complex marvel of democracy mince

the cutting of the bloated ribbon

under lights, on a hot mic

and the shiniest silver shovel breaks soil

you need to listen

i am a sternly framed letter to the government

you need to listen

a fucked up poem to the minister

you need to listen

i am the wayward butler bullet grazing your tin ear

on a perfect pennsylvania day

your stainless lobes too small a target

you need to listen

and they die in the thousands

it rains sharp hot metal

amputates and slices

as the world stares, arms folded, fixed glare

they watch in drones above the desert

and lest we forgot – again

to listen – you need to listen

you need to stop – stop stop stop…

you need to listen

stopping war is easy

you just need to listen

shhh