Pink Thongs in Darwin

Pink thongs in Darwin


People sit on the side walks

Talking

Litter blown against shop fronts

Like leaves in autumn

Coloured brilliant hues

Of women and children, barbeque

Fires roasting fat steak meat

But no lean hunters - they gone long ago

And in their place, men with bellies

Swollen hard with white man tucker

Suck on metal cans

Their forlorn faces marked

By the alcohol trace lines

Etched deep in their soul

Cutting it off from their land.



Families cluster

Sheltering as

Wet season rains down

Skies open wide

Birds flitter through trees

Leaves hang down

Water runs from the guttering

People curl inside

Against the weather

Piled in corners.

A man in kaki, he comes

Carrying a pile of pink thongs

In cellophane packets

Which he hands out.

A trade like Indian glass beads

Sold for a song, a drink, some sugar bag

And loose billy tea.

It stinks see

The land these people owned

It belonged to them

It healed them

It kept them clean and clear.

Now down we dragged them

Broke them men

Took them women

Took them children

See

But we give them pink thongs,

Plastic and cheap,

Some cheap, shitty hip hop songs,

Beer, white food to kill them

Take them art

Take them apart

But no put back together

Cause we too smart.

We just creep

Around them

Like cockroaches waiting for them carcasses

To lick clean.



Ilana Leeds