Sunday, January 26, 2014

Month of Poetry #25: Australia Day

There's been less of her beauty,
and her terror makes us disown.

Each speaker with granite eyes;
regarding his stone likeness
with blood still coursing our flesh.
One short, one fat, one lean, repeat
each in a cycle of removal and denial,
where the song ends:
all of them equally mean.

It falls into where I can't
think about for many minutes,
along with suicide, bruised babies
and freak accidents of unluck.

Those born a few thousand
plus a hundred and thirty-two clicks
away also have memories
level with the scent of the vinyl
bench seats in Dad's Kingswood.
In summer my children run toward waves,
no fear of her jewelled sea.

Breaking news, broken histories
give me angry stinging onion eyes.
Give us a hand to celebrate
and raise the middle finger high.

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Includes suggestions from:

@ReadingSheilas: her beauty and her terror (My Country, Dorothea MacKellar)
@urbabe: one short, one fat, one lean (Fantastic Mr Fox)
@home_sewn: stinging onion eyes
@ernmalleyscat: a hundred and thirty-two clicks (cricket commetary)
@JayJayCee1: regarding his stone likeness (Frank R Stockton, The Griffin and the Minor Canyon)
@xutraa: the vinyl bench seats in Dad's Kingswood
@timsterne: give us a hand to celebrate

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