Tuesday Poem: "Stealing the Dreaming"

I wake to sirens in the night

the voice of flight

black on white

a symphony of despair

rising and falling in the still night air

crossing the light

black on white

we stole their children

bred them bled them white

now we have bedlam in the night

read them their right

black on white

school work jail

set up to fail

feeling most alive when the sirens wail in the night

black on white

parents clan tribe totem language all recede

speed fills a need

hotwire ramraid let's give these Wetjalas a fright

wake them screaming from their dreaming

fair exchange              too right

I wake to sirens in the night

black on white

Wetjalas is the Nyoongar (South-West Western Australia tribe) word for "white man". When I lived in Perth, Western Australia, there was a lot of concern about young Aboriginals sniffing glue and then stealing powerful cars and taunting the police into high-speed car chases which often ended in serious injuries or fatalities.

The poet wishes to acknowledge Micropress New Zealand in whose pages this poem first appeared.