Australia Day

Tall poppy, tall poppy, richer than water,

watering plants for less than a dollar,

the dollar plant of taller concrete.

taller than tall poppies or dingo bays.

Baby eaten, more combing bread,

bred to bled cattle in lottery landings,

to lucky ignorance as comfortable mice,

flayed by empire as "united" and "nice".

Australia Day, dear diary,

tall poppies want wives and children

ignoring violence to stolen mobs, to rape

the rattle of his own lot.

Crippled and collared by tall poppies

flower from empire dollars, umpire!

Flattery can't trump tariffs of iron and beef

ignored by the same

story. History humps the haunches

of tall poppies to the no man's land,

Accent! The same flies over readers

of the Oi! Oi! Oi!, Lucky Country!

Australia Day. Tall Poppy Day.

Pride in the prejudice, compliant and flayed,

Forget discourse, the ignorance we create,

It's another Monday,

or a public holiday.

Oi!

Oi!

Oi!

We've written the past. It's the crumbs of whispers, the gluten of our daily bread. Daily we rally the rich and dally the wronged. We look to be righteous but forget songs we've written, ergo, "I can't write."

Bullshit.

Your language, your whines, your preaching, you're confined. Closed in the comfort of your increasing dollars, you reach closer to hands of the tall poppy. Now our ancestors weep from skies and quake our land, flooding Brisbane and the surrounding suburbs.

Queensland, no, Queen's land. Kings land? Our land? Appropriate label, we can't settle on. Settle. Continue,

Drunk we stoop or grind to tall poppies, the Great Dividing Range of country to city outskirts. The First Nations were right, now you're roped into the final dichotomy.