Bearing Arms
by ryall Tuesday, Feb 15 2011, 8:14am
international / prose/poetry / literature

We hang or free OUR OWN, Ms Gillard. Your actions in relation to Oz citizen Julian Assange will seal your fate, one way or the other.

a bull shark hangs dead on Clark Island
its jagged jaw gapes grotesquely
for public view;
the shark they say, the same as took the leg
of a young Navy diver

it followed a cruise ship into the harbour
but the [Navy] instructor was oblivious
to the present danger of sharks --
frantic from the constant smell
of jettisoned food -- it circled waiting
for a fix like some homicidal junkie
but none was forthcoming -- the passengers had
disembarked,
the abundant waste/food abruptly
ended but not the demands
of a shark’s desire.

the incompetence of the RAN
training in close proximity to the anchored liner
is only matched by the shameless subservience
of our politicians -- they imagine Washington
has all the answers and do as instructed
by men less competent than themselves
but it's an Oz tradition
to kowtow to colonial powers, I am told.

successive governments have allowed our defences to wither;
they send our brave military to fight in criminal wars
and deliver them to their deaths without honour or justice;
only platitudes from incompetent superiors are offered,
they attempt to invoke the ghosts of our fighting ANZACS
to justify our losses in criminal American wars.

the lesson learnt at ANZAC cove was NOT to
deliver out precious troops to foreign commanders
to be sacrificed in needless, unjust wars -- EVER AGAIN!

would we – a SOVEREIGN NATION -- expect our brave
service men and women to die
for COWARDS, traitors, lackeys and thoroughly incompetent
superiors who do not understand
the basics of the sea?

Solitary Clark Island
is decorated with an
after-thought today
a delayed response,
a lost leg and hand.

I gazed from Darling Point wharf
jagged teeth seen easily
from the mainland.

how many more
limbs and young lives would be lost to
cowardice, incompetence and traitorous
lackey politicians?

I recall our brave, rebellious past
when young Australia viewed corrupt colonial masters
with contempt and the traitorous scum that supported them
with deserved disdain.

the shark turns slowly as it hangs
dead
in the wind,
a jagged, jutting reminder.