Guardians of the Words

Israel bombs library

Strike For Palestine

at the magic point of writing my own stories
again joy’s stolen by Israel and its settler cronies,
how many times have the bombs of the colonizer
fallen on its sitting duck prisoners in Gaza?
now more sleepless nights tweeting, posting
attacking the flatulent zionist boasting
to stop genocidal killing in desperation
for my mates oppressed by the West’s occupation,
and what am i, what’s the bloody use,
another fucking white saviour out in the bush,
through a torrent of tears never heard,
all i can fight with are coarse distant words,
may they be sharp and hard, accurate missiles
to pierce the iron colonial carapace
for as in Israel and US, here they are present
condemning refugees to eternal imprisonment
scumbag white supremacists strut and preen
with gruesome European colonial hubris.

Jinjirrie, May 2021

Manifest Hasbara

Liberal hasbaroids are snide
prancing the dance of ‘both sides’
not ‘clashes’, resistance to apartheid
this ‘conflict’ is 73 years of genocide

Jinjirrie, May 2021

Related Links

The Migration Amendment (Clarifying International Obligations for Removal) Bill 2021 was introduced on the last sitting day of the last session in March.

On Thursday, in the hours before the budget reply speech, the government cut short debate on the floor of the Senate and brought the bill to a vote. There were critics on the floor of the parliament, notably Greens senator Nick McKim and independent MP Andrew Wilkie. But with bipartisan support, there was little room for dissenting voices. With Labor’s support, the bill passed quietly into law.”

Take action to end apartheid criminal Israel’s impunity – Strike for Palestine. “Silence and two-sides-ism are immoral, as they reinforce Israel’s criminal impunity.”

Tongue Tied

High Kitsch
Tossing up whether to stay,
in trouble for needling tone
weeding out redundancy,
extraneous “that’s”,
nervous “buts” grating,
musicians can’t get away with
bum notes, a voice singing flat,
drums out of time, violin out of tune.
In writing and painting,
does anything go?
with crafty nitpicking
dropped stitches unravel knitting.
“Art is a matter of opinion”
bleats the vainglorious fool,
“to write at all is better than silence”
yet quietude is restful and brainfarts terrorize,
crackling chip packets in cinemas,
literary abstract expressionists
demand respect for widdershin words,
the minimalist scribes for a single dot
in the centre of the page
.
what’s the bloody point of words anyway
if clumsy drivel is high art too,
do you feel anything at all?
do you suck or blow?

Jinjirrie, February 2021

Wankers (A Sonnet)

Working Man

I’m a working class bloke with a working class wife
I’m poor but they tell me “At least you’re white,
though you’re gonna be working for the rest of yer life,
by the grace of the great bloke god, she’ll be right”.
At sixty-five, they used to retire workers like me,
Now the bosses bleed us till we’re worn out and drop,
We’ll get ours in heaven, a pension we’ll never see
and the toffs whoop it up and scoff the lot.
Sleazy Scummo’s in clover, doing us over,
“No pasaran”, we cry, defying our fates
while we hold picket lines, sisters and brothers,
he mainlines to god, filling pockets of mates.
“Be your own revolution”, scream greedy bourgeoisie,
Yet we workers win over wankers in solidarity.

Jinjirrie, January 2021

Elegy for 2020

Elegy for 2020

Deep Freeze

It’s been a cold hell of a year
Fight, flight and frozen in fear
Plague, poverty and white people’s tears
Bearing uncertainty with desperate cheer.

Conspiracies bloom on glacial ground
Trumpolini clings to his imperial crown
The old white bois club still runs the town
Profits gush upward, never down.

The new normal is just surviving the vice
Clamping the heart, pounding in ice
In isolation, writing poems suffice
The mental equivalent of lentils and rice.

Empire’s targets are used to this stuff
Not knowing if US threats are a bluff
The club must fall, enough is enough
Never give in, never give up.

Jinjirrie, November 2020

Song for the Old White Bois’ Club

Scummo Lake

BONKARAMA CANBERRA

Don’t step out of line, girly,
I’ll run me blokey hormones all over yer,
You’re a cute little blonde from the junior staff
and you’re gonna learn who’s boss round here.

It’s Canberra bonkarama,
where men are men and run the show,
Put on your glad rags and take my arm
or your career will have to go.

CHORUS:

Bonkarama, Canberra
Bonkarama, Canberra
Where men are serious
and women are nervous.
Bonkarama, Canberra
Bonkarama, Canberra
There’s sexual potential
in the power differential,
It’s just good old human frailty
To lech after female beauty,
You can trust our daggy leader
whatever crap he feeds yer,
Bonkarama, Canberra
Bonkarama, Canberra.

Jinjirrie, November 2020

Related Links

Inside the Canberra bubble: Liberal ministers’ relationships with staffers prompted ‘bonk ban’

Christian Porter was warned over public behaviour with young female staffer by then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull


The Canberra bubble investigation points to an underlying problem we seem to see over and over again
Michael Pascoe: Hypocrisy and smokescreens cloud the ‘Canberra Bubble’
Ghosts of the past come back to haunt PM
A former staffer for Liberal frontbencher Alan Tudge has claimed she felt “belittled” and “bullied” by him and wants the PM to investigate.