This poem performed and written for the Perth Poetry Festival event Under A WA Sky: An Evening of Ecopoetry... there's an audio (low, bassy drones with a stretched chainsaw recording) that goes with it. Note that the line: "producing, consuming…" is repeated a few times - acting as mantra of sorts throughout. Its a longish piece, designed specifically for this event - about 10 minutes. I read it slowly, deliberately. Each word with gravitas.
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hot for this time of year, she said
under scalpel thin sky here
we cut deep holes in the earth
expand without sovereign consent, we rip
as if there were no core
wider and heavier than expected
and the growling western dirt
glows a dense white
in the cloudless breeze
of piling corpses
it stops raining
yet its that cleansing titanium flavour
in the fluorescent grey bathroom light
as we bulldoze as many trees as possible
before winter
gazing into the blind face of god
we farm violently to the black dust
as the koolbardie warbles us to end it, begin it
and the red-tails chant to the chainsaw
and the yonga runs from the remnant
and we take turns to burn great piles of trees to ash
and the smoke makes its way to the coast
and we burn, and dig
burn
and dig
producing, consuming…
in the embers of century-old trunks
the endless stories crackle and snap
lose their shape
and the sky goes red
in relentless abiotic suburbs
we stand and hide, cower in the dunes
between the gaps in rendered brick n tile
limestone and colourbond
bowed heads, doors shut
sealed inside remote garage-door bliss
and watch ourselves inside screens
aflame, in competition
producing, consuming…
listening to the water table rise
can you hear it?
the lilting tarmac
melts like a superphosphate dream
and we’re killing each other softly
in a doom scrolling trance
unable to breathe each other’s air anymore
the couch-grass browning out there
in the sprinkler-ban rust
the essence of cut lawns
captured instant and seamless
on a collapsing sunday
we instagram delightfully
sharing the smouldering plastic until the dusk
prodding the incinerators, judging the deep tones
bathing in the charcoal life-cycle
a shadeless existence
producing, consuming…
and we are hyper-connected and endless
like lovers fixed in vast data-centre stares
overlooking freeway lanes
and poly farmer tunnels
standing the man on the mark like a statue
reaching for the next
bloated floating
kicked leather sailing
50 metres out
buckets of chips aloft
artificial beef pies waving at the camera
black wardong pecking at the frustrated roadkill
raising capital in recycled beer glass remedies
my corporate logo spinning to the million-dollar
daily concussions of life
producing, consuming…
until the radio cuts out
and the blue-tooth bass cuts in
in guttural thuds from the car next door
under the floor, into your bones
the tuarts fall to the understory
and we cheer in packs
crushing everything beneath
through the posts for a rushed behind
or over the goal umpires hat
and we watch chicken fry in vast banks
free the secret bacon from sow stalls
and sing the jingles as we sleep
for the toothpaste glory
oh the salinity
producing, consuming…
the pool glitters at night
reflecting southern stars
the sound of the filter whirrs into dawn
that air-conditioner mantra
the iron ore calling our name on the breeze
pleading for our machines
from the petroglyphs
producing, consuming…
can we gather in rebellious extinction?
we shut down some streets
and they scream at us from car windows, skyscrapers
hotel balconies
as we glue each other to the cops
a baton at your neck, mask down in radical defiance
whispering impolitely at the elected few
waiting for their bones to bleach
like patriarchy dieback
until the perfect vaccine for toxic footprints
arrives into my thickening skin
producing, consuming…
now that fenceposts, razor-wire
and synthetic heat-sinks define us
we roam this stolen noongar boodjar
a rabbit-proof wall
of ecosystem bankruptcy
a flowing petrochemical city
risen from the coastal plains
and in the bitumen narrative
we are free
producing, consuming…
we walk the banksia woodland
as it dissolves to brittle fragments underfoot
our four-wheel-drive kicks the dust
off-road bike ruts
cut scars across the face
turn forests into driveways for logging trucks
and chained to trees
we sow the gold and wait
for the burn season
to reap us
producing, consuming…
here in the heat of late bunuru
i can’t seem to shake
this carpark identity crisis
as traffic banks up into the street
on cheap fuel Mondays
we wade the crystal facade
waiting for jesus to fix it
or the government
to make twisted promises
a wheatbelt salt prayer
a second coming of buddha
driving the blade to the ground
a seedling in the tube
a piercing slice to the lake’s crust
in a sunset worth its own
fluctuating weight in bitcoin
producing, consuming…
in this violence of us
we bury each moment
each leaf and microscopic biota
under the weight of the past
the guilt of a bitter future
our visceral century of capital
forgetting that property is theft
that land is not owned
producing, consuming…
she said,
can we stop?
just sit
and stop?
can we rest in the median strip
between shadows and concrete
glass and steel
smokestacks and cranes
cars and trains
under the towers of flat screens
without the interest-free phone screen
without a flexible no-lock-in, month-to-month contract
without apps to assist your corporate development
may we just sit in the collapsing canopies
outside the homes without trees
can we
sit and stop
stop