DRAFTING

theres an off switch,
theres a road ditch,
theres a tenth stitch,
theres a cool bitch...

there's a spin pitch,
theres a new niche
theres a cool glitch
theres a black witch

road train, with my name.

Animation by Luke Brooks of my ARTillery poem

aung san suu kyi

and there she sits
in steel regimes
cross-legged at
the glint of corrosion
this infection
this scarred remnant
of 1000s of years of
aristocracy

aung san suu kyi

where torture is an institution like
militia is just another bedtime story
as the dented baton
cuts into foreheads at gates
in streets, in monopolised medias
a litany of slave-crimes
men bruised and hungry
and dead children soldiers
in a broken democracy
a fallacy of fallen women

aung san suu kyi

that this profit-driven sickness
this fear is not of fear
but fear of corruption
where food is medicinal
and when mouthing freedom
gets a searing metal alloy at
920 metres per second
to the back of yr head

aung san suu kyi

this place
my economic free-will here
right now - just words
of no consequence
as the tears slide to the keys
my button-clicking activism
making a mockery
of those that trod the path
that stood on fences
that complained and assembled
that ran at the barricades
that stood in black masks
that wielded these guns
and fists of verbs at policemen
that this is for those
who shout our politics
on steps
on trucks
on walls
in lunchrooms
and malls

aung san suu kyi

behind western iron-ore
our blunt-force trauma
dug from desert places
we dig it and sell it
they make guns from it
we dig graves from the stolen grit
that our holes will be remembered
for shopping in sunday droves
in patterns, packs
of dying children
in shopping centre displays
the blood dried on my hands
before I could wash off the
tainted connection
to the trade deficit

aung san suu kyi
aung san suu kyi

and the interest rate
plummets
to the point of
no real interest at all
in the plight of
the others
the fuck-off-we're-full mentality
the if you-don't-love-it-leave philosophy
driving 500 metres to buy unnecessary
items from depleted resources
derived at by southern crosses
in nightclubs, where the first rule
of fightclub
is get pissed in air-conditioned utes
and fight for yr plasma
seek solace in the tubes
that slick wet skin you like
the perfect tanned, homogenised
meat palace

aung san suu kyi
aung san suu kyi

and yet in myanmar
they speak in whispers
of freedom like it were
fuel for fire
fire for life
and yet the generals
of industry here
we support en-mass

the silence of our bloated lives
that their children
never walk in a straight line
to death

aung san suu kyi
aung san suu kyi
aung san suu kyi
aung san suu kyi

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antipoet - allan boyd
november 2010
for ARTillery