Maxine Beneba Clarke

             the stroke of midnight, december thirty-first, nineteen ninety-nine,     was going to end the world   at the hospital,      they brought generators in   even the food service staff were kept till late evening   none of us would …

the prime minister has killed the department of the arts                 and is rolling arts in with rail and roads   all of us have encountered   enough art                      to know            the devastation, in …

my grandma, she loved diana:                     the people’s princess, after all   she’d say                           that was no accident;                   how convenient …

                     quick-footed and poor-visioned,   sumatran rhinos       (unless raising young calf) prefer                 to live alone   in solitary ease,                    and singing their shadow     in the …

temptress   the redhead          on the matchbox is all charcoal lash       she wears a do it smile, like eve’s                    to adam       alarm   most arsonists, they say,    …

the blood-truth is:   it’s much less about the camera            and much more to do with the body that it’s worn on   the body with the baton hanging from its belt, the body in blue, the body on the cop beat clenching fists around a point-blank pepper-spray …

a lot can go down along the 200 red burning       metres of track between the victory lap            and the starter gun        on the podium, tommie smith and john carlos could bow their heads          for civil rights, and raise …

then it’s full-bloom calendar-crash                           mama-carves-the-pumpkin tired-in-the-bones tinsel in the aisles choose your tree early here we go round the                               trick or treat time just …

they say the people’s senator         from tasmania has the deciding medevac bill repeal vote   so, quite simply, we are asking:                      does senator jacqui lambie know   that hamid khazaei      died from compounding …

 a poem constructed from the words of Peter Dutton     african gangs have taken over the streets, melburnians are afraid to go out to eat                                  …

the bell rings at two thirty, an hour too early: playground a-teeming, kids whooping with glee   mums all where’s-wallying this way and that, as dads dig in lost property for this term’s stray hat   kids spill from demountables, halls, ball courts …

so hear us out,           we invite that australian guy:   the PM with the big head who loves god, and hates migrants   we put on a state dinner,      all the trimmings, bells and whistles: get his wife and melania          all smiling, …

for greta thunberg                 on fridays, our children are bursting train carriages backpacked full of hope   wielding placards bedroom-made from flattened cornflake boxes     and upcycled tomato-stakes                 …

no rain in sight,                      all hot south-westerlies            spring-tinder   grey smoke, coiled                       around the cowering sunshine coast   amanda wheezed, and sucked her ventolin     dad called …

it chilled the blood                it felt different, this time when the deportation vans arrived     they lived next door          and were just like us: he worked the abattoir (bloody tough)   the wife: smiling away          when …

september germinates,                                            determined                          all sure-quiet-beautiful and fern and jade unfurl     in furrows dug with fothergill                     …

There once was a shock-jock, annoying:

foul-mouthed, sexist, racist, not-toying.

He got his last warning,

the public were scorning.

And the sponsors, they walked – that was buoying!

most of us,     it seems ridiculous now, were there to save all life                         from hostes humani generis   which we’d learnt,       way back in week two of class meant the enemies of mankind     twenty …

                    we have determined                     he, and he alone,                                                             is responsible        …

                         and we were all waiting for that golden age,                      of fourteen and nine months and a starting wage   a paper route, stacking shelves at franklins, or working checkout at the safeway sweeping …

                                              this month   we know now what the body does                                        for the second time   falling     at eighty …

caught skint                     at the iga counter   frantic hands searching threadbare jeans                     sorry, guess i’m short on change today                     forgot my card as …

in grade eleven, our legal studies teacher fired up the overhead projector   and fuzzy grey handwriting shone                                         on the classroom wall   the constitution: separation of …

no one likes a politician   no matter how good you are, no matter how hard the job, no matter                how you serve the public   and whoever you love, and whatever you’ve done   the press, they’re like bloodhounds        …

                                            i the president is tough on immigration,                       he is building the mexico wall   and the smell of despair is unbearable, in …

in my home state, now, by law                 those leaving us can tread gently: usher themselves towards the light in the dignity they see fit   and i can’t remember all of their names they and i were strangers                …

first, the Ministry of Truth doctored language their words weaponry, loaded and aimed: asylum seekers became illegals they said detention centres, not jails   then the Ministry of Peace           tweaked the …

baked redbrick,    in the darwin heat dry palms whisper,    in the stifling breeze   bloke says                mate, we were sure it was fireworks   ruddy face shock-blank,    mouth set grim                   …

silence,                   all across the mourning fog     dark winter has descended     birds flee to warmth from branches, gnarled   and hope                    drifts on the wind   crisp leaves                 …

so we’ll go to the polls         lined round winter street corners pushy leafleteers         shoving how-tos in our hands   we’ll elbow past smiling placards         and straight-talking spruikers still wearied with the bickering   …

folktale has it          new arrivals, they’ll throw any queen or kingdom              into spin   angered uninvited guests will conjure curses   horses are saddled: messengers dispatched far and wide to burn the spinning wheels   firstborns, …

– for natalina angok   they are the women                  whose bodies                  don’t quite make front page     they are carefully measured outrage        when it happened   they weren’t walking home …

with his right arm raised in holy rapture   and the invited camera man angling the frame   shirt creased shadow-dramatic      like a gentileschi   and hallelujah light catching               his face, just-so   the prime minister …

on the western façade      the archangel michael grand wings aloft, was weighing souls   and the serpent hissed down      at eve, regal and adam   as thomas the apostle put a hand                 to his brow   and ash wind dusted     …

the pollsters are gleeful         saying                 abbott’s time has come     things, they are about to change around warringah way     cause 28 has finally had his run   and we, the people         better …

the upholstery that adorns the lower house                    they called silver-eucalypt green   and when all’s razed to ash after fire season                      the heat     cracks open the seed             …

and by the end no one dared to say his name     so we called him          nineteen   because of how they said it all began   that nineteen votes let a man into the halls of parliament who invoked the crimes of nuremberg   whose words …

across the tasman through a westerly      in ōtautahi, aotearoa   land of the long             white     cloud   lives a tiny creature warbling, flightless   unlike any         endothermic vertebrate   the great spotted kiwi loves …

        on march 21 the people’s feet thundered seven thousand through the township    of sharpeville chanting izwe lethu come hell or mandela they would fell the passbook laws sixty nine dead without one     dispersion warning wailing …

As PM, on the hill, while the polls all favoured Bill, I, stressed, rested my eyelids for a time. Was a daydream, I assumed, no bloody way it could be true: the parade-of-the-departing that sashayed by.   There waved Julie, in red shoes (Manolo Blahniks …

and if hell exists       hail mary, full of grace then surely they have lived it   and     hail mary, mother of god     there is a special place inside the vatican for men like pell   whose shadows fall over communion goblets …

before despair hits before the shame before scanning job sites and uncertainty   it’s shiny writing on the wall                                     reading centrelink             named like it’s the …

oh come on geoff wilson’s not my cousin cousin   he’s my grandfather’s cousin’s grandson unremoved     frankly speaking i barely know the bloke we have the same last name but the link is     ...confused          …

he calls them               union thugs                 the prime minister-unelect who got the job with a dirty knife and a smug lopsided smile                 a small-hearted bully who will only fight to …

the monsters are out and the women of melbourne              we're leaving early again sending are you home? texts glancing over shivering shoulders keeping friends on the line until the key’s in the lock oh sisters         …

                   we’ll say the summer right before was blue-green algae bastard took the bony bream      and silver perch reckon it grew from heat and farming run-off cyanobacteria is what they said                    and …

                   we’ll say the summer right before was blue-green algae bastard took the bony bream      and silver perch reckon it grew from heat and farming run-off cyanobacteria is what they said    …

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