• Samuel Wagan Watson

I was born in a land, borne from a Dreamtime; a landscape of earthly parables; inhabited by mythical peoples and other-worldly creations… And this is my wonderland.

 

The cleanest land in the southern hemisphere… so cleansed, that only happy, intoxicated white people are celebrated on television… this is my wonderland?

 

I am free but have few democratic rights. I am the unforgiven scourge of the

Ruling Class; Welcome to Australia… this is my wonderland?

 

Christian soldiers arrived, invading, crusading, turning the terra-firma into a terror-infested, locked-down, maximum security destination… this is my wonderland?

 

The prison that now even keeps prisoners outside of its walls… asylum seekers in perpetual asylum…

 

As death-bird scream
And the Warden dictates,
Lights Out!

This is Australia…

It is surreal estate…

The forced closure of Indigenous communities…

The neo-genocide…

Lights Out!
This is my home…
I have been blinded by its beauty, but never to the horrors
of scorched earth.
This is my wonderland…

 

 

 

Addendum

Psalm 68:6 

God provides homes for those who are the deserted. He leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious lived in a scorched land…

 

 

 

from Monster's Ink, IPSI Chapbook 3