New True Anthem
Despite what Dorothea has said
about the sun scorched land
you've never really loved her
nor sought to make her grand
you pollute all the rivers
and litter every road
your barbaric graffiti
cuts scars where tall trees grow
the beaches and the mountains
are covered with your shame
injustice rules supremely
despite your claims to fame
the mud polluted rivers
are fenced off from the gaze
of travellers and the thirsty
for foreign hooves to graze
a tyranny now rules your soul
to your own image blind
a callousness and uncouth ways
now hallmarks of your kind
Australia oh Australia
you could stand proud and free
we weep in bitter anguish
at your hate and tyranny
the scarred black bodies writhing
humanity locked in chains
land theft and racial murder
you boast on of your gains
in woodchip and uranium
the anguished death you spread
will leave the children of the land
a heritage that's dead
Australia oh Australia
you could stand tall and free
we weep in bitter anguish
at your hate and tyranny.
© Kevin Gilbert,
published in Black from the Edge. Hyland House, 1994.
Red Land Claims - bordered poem
Peer into the Campfire
Winter Camp: Aboriginal Tent Embassy
Earth Summit - on red silk
Uncle Paddy
I'm black Paddy. I pick grapes
An' I trap rabbits
One extreme to the other
Sweet juices on my hands one week
Stinkin' rabbit guts on the next
I don't eat 'flash' most of the time
Sometimes chops, sometimes hash
Mostly sugar/flour/tea, goannas that I seek
Moolingmah 'n gullingah
An' other butcher's trash
It does me. I'm a trapper – but I'm free
Know what it's like, boy?
It's like the sweet spring breeze singin' in the tree
The clean face of the moon on a winter's night
The powerful pound of the sea.
No man calls me 'Jacky'
No man counts weekly pennies into my hand
No man cheats or patronizes me
No man calls me 'darky' or 'boy'
No man calls me anything but 'Sir' or 'Mr. Patrick'
It's great to be free, worthwhile to be free
Even if you have to trap rabbits and eat sheep guts-
Eat well of it- not for the hell of it
Eat sheep guts- and fight to be free!!!
* Moolingmah 'n Gullingah: sheep guts
One-way ticket in a two-way land
The gang-gangs came
to our hill today
screeching wheeling settling
in the old gum tree near our window
remarking a remarkable event
our window out of plumb
with the rest of our house
that is out of plumb
with every straight horizontal parallel
joist bearer or other regular point of reference
within a house.
Out of the house
the insane cacophonous sound
encircles the birds
in an aura of substantial reality
resembling intelligent order
making comparisons
compromise possible somehow.
The iron-age industrial revolution
converted us to plasticity
moulding extruding our psyche
into a non-recyclable abnormalness
ravaged packeted commercialised
in cosmopolitan areas
of higher technology
and computerisation
video flashing generative leaps
to bio-chip organisms
orgasms in vitro
a sudden sad departure
from intelligible communication
with real life things
such as gang-gangs
and meaningful lifestyles
and some metaphysical thing
mentioned in legends
called happiness.
