Territorial

Moonlight stains the garden blue

Leaking off leaves like ejaculate

Bats fuck and fight in the foliage

Spraying black shit against the gate

In the distance crackers thwack

Impotent gestures after the fact

Yet the boredom seeps like a gas

Through a suburb in a city waiting

Tides ebb through the mangroves

Mosquitoes hum in the shadows

The smell of barbecued meats

Sound of wine infused chitchat

Daub these sunsets with romanticism

While in Cullen Bay they are debating

The finer points of Arnhem Land painting

Those wearing rugby jerseys and tatts

Mohawks and rat tails are waiting

They peer through cyclone fencing

Sucking back beers at the mud racing

Their question remaining unasked

Clouds gather, there is a rumble in the sky

The weather has turned, we exit the dry

Now the long wait through the build up

Spectral storms, the breaking of the rain

This frontier has a mind of its own

It will be what it will be

Leave it to the people

For this is their home

© shaun patrick green 2014

Undertow.

Backstroking under stars

I forget who you are

We talk family and friends

Cook and drink and talk again

The climate change disaster

A future for our daughter

She so fair and malleable

Her new awareness palpable

Then the TV is turned on

And the common ground is gone

American sitcoms and reality shows

Are the deadly undertow

They gently lull us to sleep

Then drown us in the deep

That abysmal sea of normality

Sponsored by your favourite companies

Selling you pre-packaged dreams

Of who you think you can be

So do we swim across the current

Or let ourselves be dragged

                    Out… to… sea…?

© shaun patrick green 2014

History’s Bitch.

History is the hound sniffing our trail

She is hunting us down and will not fail

Sins of the fathers visited upon sons

No place left to hide, nowhere to run

Bodies in ovens, imprisoning children

Denying the order once we’ve killed them

It will catch us in fields of mass graves

Point out the bloodied hand holding the blade

Poison the water where the healthy drank

Mark the place where the refugees sank

She will dig up the bones of the millions dead

And hang them like baubles above our beds

We will run through rivers to confuse our scent

These rivers are blood, yet she will not relent

In our dreams where we conquer, kill and maim

She will snap at our heels and breathe her name

There is no forgetting in the court of the future

History is our judge, jury and executioner

She is our conscience, that constant itch

She is our master, and we are her bitch

© shaun patrick green 2014