Terra Nullius
HISTORY
History folded into a schoolgirl’s journal locked with a key.
It started with white man's rabid hunger.
They were given a boat,
And a compass
To devour the world.
Handed a gun,
And took a big bite.
“Terra Nullius”
What defines a man?
Is it the sting of a redback?
Ruthlessness of a crocodile?
Is it one who holds a gun in their hand and asks a body not yet cold,
To apologise for having a bullet in their heart/leg?
Is it a guilt-less pleasure dripping from their fingers and lips?
Is it a man with not a green thumb but a red one,
Which scatterers crimson evening dew?
Is it one with a Grim reaper’s black book,
Filled with buried names who wish to be in a land of the
Young
and free?
Ancestors I Try to Forget
The ink stain of 88
Pricks like a thorn in my throat,
Entwined in my DNA
Blood …show more content…
I want to wash away the touch of my Forefathers from the landscape
With water and soap,
I seize a pen and draw lines reuniting each person back to their family.
Erasing what history broke stole.
Regain the undivided soil,
Shatter the lines.
Mumma, honey dripped from your sister’s mouth when she read you poetry.
Colonial minded teachers slapped her with dictionaries
She had read at 10 years old,
Reverberating in her mind that her mother taught her wrong.
For her sun-ripened skin talked before her lips could open
14 times school would not let daddy take me home because an oriental man could not birth a porcelain child,
Grandfather
My grandfather gave me a name that commands the full use of tongue,
Each syllable tells its own story.
When spoken
It carries mountains.
Runs like a river through my ancestral tree and nourishes the roots.
Rolls off the tongue like sweet mango juice.
It carries with it
Thick fragrant turmeric,
At touch, it stains palm to palm.
It bites like a Bengal tiger
Rolls like water off my back
Without it, half of myself is lost.
It does not allow me to trust anybody who does not appreciate each
History folded into a schoolgirl’s journal locked with a key.
It started with white man's rabid hunger.
They were given a boat,
And a compass
To devour the world.
Handed a gun,
And took a big bite.
“Terra Nullius”
What defines a man?
Is it the sting of a redback?
Ruthlessness of a crocodile?
Is it one who holds a gun in their hand and asks a body not yet cold,
To apologise for having a bullet in their heart/leg?
Is it a guilt-less pleasure dripping from their fingers and lips?
Is it a man with not a green thumb but a red one,
Which scatterers crimson evening dew?
Is it one with a Grim reaper’s black book,
Filled with buried names who wish to be in a land of the
Young
and free?
Ancestors I Try to Forget
The ink stain of 88
Pricks like a thorn in my throat,
Entwined in my DNA
Blood …show more content…
I want to wash away the touch of my Forefathers from the landscape
With water and soap,
I seize a pen and draw lines reuniting each person back to their family.
Erasing what history broke stole.
Regain the undivided soil,
Shatter the lines.
Mumma, honey dripped from your sister’s mouth when she read you poetry.
Colonial minded teachers slapped her with dictionaries
She had read at 10 years old,
Reverberating in her mind that her mother taught her wrong.
For her sun-ripened skin talked before her lips could open
14 times school would not let daddy take me home because an oriental man could not birth a porcelain child,
Grandfather
My grandfather gave me a name that commands the full use of tongue,
Each syllable tells its own story.
When spoken
It carries mountains.
Runs like a river through my ancestral tree and nourishes the roots.
Rolls off the tongue like sweet mango juice.
It carries with it
Thick fragrant turmeric,
At touch, it stains palm to palm.
It bites like a Bengal tiger
Rolls like water off my back
Without it, half of myself is lost.
It does not allow me to trust anybody who does not appreciate each