All is burning, cinders and ash
flakes float in black rain,
falling on a ground
of clinkers and flinders.
The hand of ruin traces sigils
of chaos and strife
on broken city walls,
within which rats awaken
They are the true rulers of destruction,
living cloaked with shadows,
in any crevice or crack,
hunting bones and burnt flesh.
Their rivals, jet-black birds,
massing on heights above
in their murders
and raucous unkindness'.
After Ragnarök, the still silence
is broken by the raspy flutter
of a million wings,
echoed chittering of uncountable hordes.
What life is left
does not weep.
Categories:
flinders, surreal,
Form: Free verse
With compass and sextant, paper and ink,
Bungaree, Nanbaree, Matthew and George
and a cat and a crew were at sea.
They went sailing and sailing, around and around
in Eighteen Hundred and Three.
The Investigator’s navigator calculated space
by meridians and parallels to draw Australia’s place.
With Tasmania as an island, and Bass Strait in between,
he mapped the coastal outlines with ink like lines of lace.
On an island east of Africa, where dodos used to roam,
he wrote a book, and drew more maps, in prison, far from home.
He’d travelled as a scientist; he’d met Frenchman, Baudin,
but, here to mend a leaking boat, they would not let him go.
The governor of the Isle de France let pirates prowl the sea,
but arrested Matthew Flinders as a spy and enemy.
Around Good Hope, after the siege -
from Mauritius, now British (not French),
back to London, sailed Matthew Flinders,
not knowing his days were brief.
Map-maker, map-maker, making a map,
right ’round Australia, and finally back.
Map-maker, map-maker, thanks for the book,
of Terra Australis and the journeys you took.
Categories:
flinders, history, sea,
Form: Rhyme
Scott Morrision says the USA had slaves, Australia did not
The Aborigines may disagree, and women in the church, along with boys
WE heard the scandal (Maybe sex slavery is really FREE!)
Now, I know something else, those Queensland sugar plantations
Deep in what HUGH TINKER (no Indian) called "New Slavery" since 1838!
Once Britain showed great heart to abolish slavery, keep plantations
To be worked by the "surplus" in India! It made Mahtama Gandhi mad
That great nations use one race against another - always - divide & rule
"To make the abolition and emancipation of slaves real" with new slaves
Using words creativity (not more democracy), Creative TREACHERY:
Hugh Tinker's book by this name called indented labor, "New System of Slavery"
NOTE: I had a strange deal at Flinders University to teach this subject: Indentured Labor and British Plantations, but i took too long at Johns Hopkins University getting my PhD for Dr. Ralph Shlomowitz. In part, due to racism I suffered there at the hands of a famous Philip Curtin. I won, thanX Jesus!
Categories:
flinders, africa, america, political, power,
Form: Free verse
A track leads through a gully in the bushland
Following the least line of resistance in a haphazard plan
The kookaburras and the magpies squawk happily away
The sun on my back makes me want to stay
Walking to the rock face broken on the gorge face
Two wallabies look our way and away they race
A creek flows through glistening in the sun
The day exploring is heaven easily done.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Categories:
flinders, nature,
Form: Ballad
Droving Carolyn,
You could always come a droving,
on the stock route we'd be roving,
sleep neath the stars,
an rough it on the track.
Where the Dingoes howl at midnight,
and the Sand Goannas fight with Brown Snakes,
and the air is sweet as honey,
but there isn't any money,
and you wash in rivers,
sometimes, way outback.
Riding in a Poley saddle,
Slowing back the cattle,
To get a feed of Flinders grass so sweet,
Just a walking leading me horse,
Chomping Damper corn meat an sauce,
Yes me Quartpot boiled of course ,
An I’m drinking some black tea,
Not too bloody sugary.
The trucking yards are waiting,
Two days away, let em go,
in the long paddock tonight,…(stock route)
Tomorrow we will muster,
watch the brown horse, watch him buster,
or he’ll drop you in the long grass,
and you won’t bloody like?
Don Johnson 19-june-11
Categories:
flinders, adventureme,
Form: Rhyme