The Wild Colonial Boy

The wild colonial boy is a loner

The wild colonial boy has guilt over his plunder

The wild colonial boy plunders his guilt

The wild colonial boy doesn’t know

            what to do with the plunder

The wild colonial boy offloads the plunder

            at the trash and treasure

The wild colonial boy can’t tune into the Eureka Stockade

The wild colonial boy tries to fly in and fly out but is caught out,

            amphetamines in his urine

The wild colonial boy shares a cell with a Noongar bloke

            who shares law and knowledge from country

The wild colonial boy rather be inside than out

            because the chains and slavery of the languages

            of occupation leave him confused and angry,  

            but inside is murder and he knows it

The wild colonial boy doesn't know what to do

            with his skill set — he thinks of going bush

The wild colonial boy watches the numbats

            near the huts in the visitors’ part of Dryandra Forest

The wild colonial boy listens to the crested pigeon flying, to the bush stone-

            curlew stalking, the western gerygone singing along with the

            elegant parrot in the canopy and the golden whistler

            and even the nest-hunting shining bronze-cuckoo

The wild colonial boy couldn’t be said to be distracted as the cops

            close in around him, but listening to the cross-talk

            of community, the close-knit interferences of belonging,      

            the distress of songs broken up by songs of repair and reparation

The wild colonial boy is taken and cuffed and has the shit

            kicked out of him — now he is tattooed with a constellation

            that shines over no part of the earth but is permanent

The wild colonial boy watches a young Noongar bloke being beaten

            to death in the lock-up

The wild colonial boy has been extradited as witness

            to be laughed at by the judge, to be warned to say nothing more

            if he ever wants to wander the plains again

The wild colonial boy promises himself he will shout the truth

            at every footy match, in front of every television,

            to the writers of reports who will go home to love and calm

The wild colonial boy wanders the port streets on his release,

            not understanding he’s in a decolonising world,

            the shops bristling with worldly goods, with opportunities,

            and all good things coming to those standing and waiting

The wild colonial boy stops in front of a travel agency window

            and sees a jet will take him anywhere in the world

            and that he can unlearn the codes of his failings —

            he can become he can become he can become

The wild colonial boy has worn dresses and wandered naked

            and has never been stuck on the codes of the pub

            and wonders if his time has come, but the urbane laugh

            at him — his phonelessness — head-in-hands on the kerb

The wild colonial boy looks out for his mate the actor

            but knows in his heart that his friend is gone,

            a friend who had been eaten by Australia,

            a friend whose name he won’t use in a song

            out of respect for the dead

The wild colonial boy looks out from near the walls

            of the Roundhouse and finds solace

            in the sea, the dolphins, the gulls

The wild colonial boy hears the many conversations

            and all languages make sense to him

            though he claims none — he is homeless

            and stateless and his family can't reach him

The wild colonial boy can't ‘call Australia home’, though he has never

            really left its shores; but he has travelled outside its jurisdictions,

            and he has travelled far beyond its metaphors

            John Kinsella