Suffocation
Article by:
Dominic Guerrera. Photo: Thomas McCammon.
Past
earth couldn’t breath
as atomic bombs colonised her sky kingdom dust carried on winds settled on leaves
swallowed by rivers
scorched and throbbing in pain wounded, she bled out to the sea
within toxic dust
, they
hid children
raped woman
killed men
and wiped the land clear
a songline of suffocation
in the air and in our mouths
we bled out to sea
Present
Your colonial dust can be found in a place
A place the colony likes to keep things
Things, like the fifteen years I won’t live to see
A place where my grandmother’s childhood resides
It’s so dark, it’s fit for an arsenal of spit hoods and handcuffs
It can be found in the hollowed out earth for mining, at the stumps of dead birthing trees and on the bridge that lead to the business of women
It’s pernicious shit and we are still forced to breathe it in
And hold it, like you hold the futures of black men behind cell doors
It pernicious shit and we are still forced to breathe it in
And hold it, like you hold the children away from culture in white foster homes
It pernicious shit and we are still forced to breath it in
And hold it, like how you hold land, wealth and privilege
Future
No recognise
we validate our own existence
No treaty
as Aboriginal nations will been reinstated as the authority to coexist with
No close the gap
land we no longer measure ourselves against a white standard
No need to raise the age
as prisons are replaced with communities and judges with elders
No changes to an anthem
because nobody wants to hear white people sing
No reconciliation
because it’s deliberately grammatically incorrect
No racism
as white archaic constructs will be banished to the empty skulls that created them
No police
because our communities are safer without them
No museums
as culture is living and continuous, the glass cabinets have been shattered
No voice to a parliament
that has been burnt down, guttered and filled with trees
No australia
because it never existed in the first place
