Then court case and headline

Stern talk of maintenance.

Is it a dark girl?

Then safe immunity;

He takes what he wants

And walks off like a dog.

Was ever even one,

One of all the thousands

Ever made responsible?

For dark unmarried mothers

The law does not run.

No blame for the guilty

But blame uttered only

For anyone made angry

Who dares even mention it,

Challenging old usage,

Established, accepted

And therefore condoned.

Shrug away the problem,

The shame, the injustice;

Turn the blind eye,

Wash the hands like Pilate.

Not My Style

Not my style?

Man! the world will end

And you complain.

I want to do

The things I have not done.

Not just taste the nectar of Gods

But drown in it too.

Shed my grass-root skin.

Emerge!

As woman!

1. poet!

   1. writer!

      1. musician!

Eat herbs;

Chew grass;

Commit suicide;

Live.

Stuff myself

Of the bitter and the sweet,

Before,

1. that thing,

   1. that thing,

      1. outside

Comes.

Last of His Tribe

Change is the law. The new must oust the old.

I look at you and am back in the long ago,

Old pinnaroo lonely and lost here,

Last of your clan.

Left only with your memories, you sit

And think of the gay throng, the happy people,

The voices and the laughter

All gone, all gone,

And you remain alone.

I asked and you let me hear

The soft vowelly tongue to be heard now

No more for ever. For me

You enact old scenes, old ways, you who have used

Boomerang and spear.

You singer of ancient tribal songs,

You leader once in the corroboree,

You twice in fierce tribal fights

With wild enemy blacks from over the river,

All gone, all gone. And I feel

The sudden sting of tears, Willie Mackenzie

In the Salvation Army Home.

Displaced person in your own country,

Lonely in teeming city crowds,

Last of your tribe.

Note: Willie Mackenzie was the last surviving member of the Darwarbada tribe of the Caboolture district. He died in 1968, age unknown, but probably in the eighties. His tribal name was Geerbo, his totem the native bee. The ‘Mackenzie’ came from his family's first white boss, a selector of that name.

The Child Wife

They gave me to an old man,

Joyless and old,

Life's smile of promise

So soon to frown.

Inside his gunya

My childhood over,

I must sit for ever,

And the tears fall down.

It was love I longed for,

Young love like mine,

It was Dunwa wanted me,

The gay and brown.

Oh, old laws that tether me!

Oh, long years awaiting me!

And the grief comes over me,

And the tears fall down.

Happy the small birds

Mating and nesting,

Shrilling their gladness

No grief may drown.

But an old man's gunya

Is my life for ever,

And I think of Dunwa,

And the tears fall down.

The Young Girl Wanda

Crooning her own girl thoughts and dreams

The young girl Wanda,

Grinding nardoo with the women