Though we are anchored to our mental shores
Uninsured at the Boranup breaks
Telling stories to the wardong
Songs to the unsafe terrain at our feet speak
In beats across the blatant sky
All mud and pindan
All meat and muscle
All bus stops and diesel fumes
Airports and Stadiums
And all streets always end in circles
Return to the sturdy vessel
Bags stored in uber boots
Fire sticks and smartphones crackle electricity
Our apps meet in the western humidity
Heads float over the unwritten landscape
The terra nullius of our bent language
Unspoken, unheard, reserved words curved and carved
Into impossible clouds from airline windows
Into the strange artefact of your wooden face,
Your dreamt body waits at Derbal Yerrigan
And wait for unsaid answers
In the soft sound of this framed space
This baked baker baking
This naked inhale
.
And its here in each broken breath
In the jarrah creaks beneath our bodies
Sipping the long person energy
We simply breathe the dust of Noongar Boodja
Of the coastal plain
Sucking banksia nectar in the fat sun
Under the satanic thunder of State,
Of gods, of masters
Of our capital selves
That we cannot kneel politely
Under wet blankets of climactic blindness
Unbound by these monsters
Undrunk on concepts
Shedding scales n skins n shifting flesh n bone n eucalypt fire
Until we dream ourselves deeper harder
Deeper harder
Into each other’s landscape
---
Written for "The Landscapes We Cannot Shed" - Lit Crawl, Perth Festival 2020. Performed at Mary Street Bakery, Mt Lawley as sacrificial poet.
"The Landscapes We Cannot Shed explores the physical, spiritual and emotional homes we inhabit in a lifetime. From local legends to national stars, join Zal- Kanga Parabia, David Stavanger, Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Maddie Godfrey, Allan Boyd, Tineke Van Der Eeken, Hessom Razavi, Asha Kiani, Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa and Zainab Syed for a night of poetry that builds from solo performances to rapid-fire rhythms and ends with the intimacy of a soulful third round." https://www.facebook.com/events/534419450723923/