Land of "Sit boy" and Ruddo

Australia is a plastic bag
bringing the shopping home
Australia converses in invisible grooves
Australia is dabbling in charity
and living in indifference
Australia is jogging and blonde
Australia is privileging the dog
over the possum. the rabbit and the roo
(Australia is the oral fixation
of endless cooking shows)
Australia is smiling death-mask breakfast shows
Australia lights the shabbos candles
in Caulfield and Dover heights
Australia is where you come home to
from the Haj
Australia talks Gujarati
late at night on the train
Australia cannot imagine
the privation beyond
or in its back yard

Australia is here
Australia is now
a bloody great continent
grey green on the edges
blood red inside
take the oath of fealty
and jump through hoops
“if yer don’t like it mate
go back where you came from”

Australia says sorry
we hunted you down
and thought you weren’t human
Straylya’s a salesman called Khan
Bangladeshi till girl
cleaner from China
Lebanese builder
Japanese hooker
straylia’s a blacktown
in a white city
in a red desert
in a grey sea
Australia’s great courage
Australia’s great flatness
Australia’s dreamtime
and Christmas pudding
Australia turns yesterday’s
banality
into tomorrows
revered history

Australia worships the comfort zone
Australia watches fish hunting on telly
a beer in hand
Australia is Anglo- Celtic castles
of sand
on Uluru’s back
Australia is being
close and distant
at the same time


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