You cannot hide my empathy under headlines, nor party fundraisers, or under very large stones. My finger still points, though decorated with union gold, middle class idolatry, cigarette yellowing in rings of university education, it points at an absence, an abscess and I am ashamed of this, yes, but that is not why I point, I am white and priviledged, but that is not why I am allowed to point, I point because something is broken. It drags my feet to town calls above my complacency in comfortable sheets and clean dinnerware. My empathy does not hide in suds nor slogans. Sat aloft my perch, taken to with a rusted axe, chipped and shortened so as to not commit a guilt-driven drive-by on my ancestry, I toke and taunt the image of "Our Australia". Her beauty masked by terror, a wide brown bosom is branded by violence and outbursts of intimidation from cafe Windows and floral collections. Tattooed non-teethers rage at the summit, and those who knock are unanswered. 

Brother

Brother,
Although the bed smells like
safety, and the blankets cling
to your shoulders
(as if cloaking you as Eddard,
turned North to the Wall)
To be a mountain is not
your fate;
Nor a plain, for others to
pass through.
Ebb as the sea does,
crash down as a tidal wave.
Make all known,
and court sirens at twilight
with your soothing rhythms.

Sea cucumbers off the Darwin Coast

Like a wave of suddenly identified metanarrative 

I am reeling: 

bobbing my overboard to participate 

in the occasional cheeky spew. 

Is this excitement? 

Or nerves? 

Is this the new South Wales 

that the captain explored and declared barren? 

Or the undiscovered Darwin coast 

holding lovely trade of sea cucumbers, 

broken discussions and haggling 

over wares deemed a natural commodity? 

How will we live?