A poem in support of Tahlia and Emma at the Roe 8 protest

Sweeney Witnesses the Attack on the Coolbellup Bush
by the Forces of a Corrupt Police State

for Tahlia and Emma

Wings clipped, you’d expect Sweeney to plunge

to the ground, plough into the ploughed sand

and wait helpless till collected by the mulcher

and spat into a pile of has-beens, signed-off on.

Wings clipped, you’d expect Sweeney to plunge

into the clouds of toxic dust generated by the smash-

and-grab, by the sweeping of the last pieces

from the board in an endgame not quite going to plan.

Wings clipped, you’d expect Sweeney to plunge

into the microclimate of asbestos, the bush stressed

as dumping ground for waste no one wants to pay for,

then murdered because other forms of life test reality’s limits.

Wings clipped, you’d expect Sweeney to plunge

into the crowd of protesters, some wearing face masks,

others exposed to the dust that reaches into front gardens,

houses, the small amount of space allotted to public recreation.

Wings clipped, you’d expect Sweeney to plunge

into the police lines, police told to watch out for the particles,

that it will cost them too in the long run, but the Big Cop

says hold your positions, breathe in, breathe out, it’s all propaganda.

Wings clipped, you’d expect Sweeney to plunge

into the bulldozer, stuff up its hydraulics, its bamboozled

driver bragging of his agency. And all the while the women

up the trees looking down and roosting, roosting, roosting.

Wings clipped he lifted, flying high, to sit close with Tahlia.

Wings clipped he lifted, flying high, to sit close to Emma.

Together, he said, Together we will keep the trees upright.

Together, he said, We will unravel the bulldozer, the mulcher.

            John Kinsella

Bulldozing has begun, but resistance continues

Poems against destruction

Beeliar Wetlands Protest and Enforcing a Police State

This is part of a sequence of poems I've been working on over the last few years. As some of you will have seen in the news, the Western Australian Premier and Minister for Environment (makes me sick writing that absurd title), and other government enforcers, have had the police out in force to ensure the 'progress' of the destruction of the Beeliar bushland. Photos on the ABC website show a few police; today they had a phalanx of hoplites spread out to ward off the protesters so the attack on the bushland could continue. It's that brutal — it is an act of state violence that must be met with committed pacifist resistance. Non-violent action against the violence of state capitalism.


Sweeney Contemplates a Display of Force by the Police State

Distant now, and working out how to make a return, how to embrace

the wetlands and detrack the machines, Sweeney flew low through the rain

of grasshoppers rising up from the denuded plains, late crops shaking

their seed onto the scorched earth. I will return to the coastal plain,

said Sweeney loud to the parrots, loud to the crows, loud to the mulga

snakes, loud to the grasshoppers. I will stand with the protectors against

the troops of the dictator, against the builder of stadia and his wealthy,

uncouth mates. I will stand against their class pretensions, against their

sporting codes which read a little like the bishop leading an army

against the heathen. I am a heathen, Sweeney told the blue sky

stretched to breaking point; I am old as the earth but can’t even perch

on the outstretched branch of a York gum without feeling guilt. But I will fly

down to the marri, to the blackbutt, to the banksia, to the zamias and grass

trees and ask if I might perch temporarily, temporarily to watch over

the souls of those who dwell there, who know the stories, who connect

constellations with earth itself, who can unpick the codes, the fever

of growth, schematics of belonging. Red-tailed black cockatoos

will guide me in, give me strength.  I will ask to join the lines, speaking

my ancient tongue of respect. I will tell the police they must listen

to the ground through their feet, must listen to the whispering

coming out of the bush where there are as many worlds

as night reveals, spreading its sheet, a future unfurled.

            John Kinsella

More on the Beeliar Protest and Resistance - Environmental Activism and Poetry

Beeliar Protest Verbs

Killing jar, these wetlands

for government gameplay:

ventricle, atrium, white-tailed

black cockatoo. Jarrah resonance.

Imaging reptiles, marsupials. Boodjar.

Fence up to cull otherworldly.

Clean house.

*

Bulldozer. Catch-all.

Taxonomy overload.

Aesthetes shrink before

what’s to come. Non-

art. Tasteless. How many

words did Milton offer

the English language?

How many words

did the English language

steal from the Noongar people?

*

We saw light and blood seep

from the guttered banksia candle:

like premonition, we shrive

in this belief the worshippers

encased in buildings won’t

listen to. But some do,

their houses on the edge

of another way of living,

persisting.

*

James sends us a photo

from the Beeliar bushland —

a killed bandicoot shovelled up

and shown to motorists passing,

motorists who might soon

be taking the piece of highway

about to be inserted where

the bandicoot’s habitat

once lay, where the bandicoot

lived against the odds,

respite from the suburbs.

*

Management plan profiteering to CEO permission

open slather surface tension to glint a growth ring

absorption to freight blind snake unto pobblebonk

to delete quenda and value-add quality of life sink

bores to test the overlay presence of sealant while

rainbow bee-eaters ploy in dugouts to tip into refuse

removed from site as security only does its job in a pay

packet survivalist way forgive and forget and implement

bonfire and hope for camaraderie in this global singularity

this one season of consuming what’s left lest we miss out

lest we’re deprived in comparison deft dressing vanities

while recountings get relegated to books and stories

work overtime to lift the lost to deny the extermination

as it will be forgotten what was before the rapid transit

voting patterns as free as Trump Tower as free as bums

on seats in proliferating stadia to keep gladiators on

project and whose ancestors push against the blades

of the machines — have you ever seen the z-grade

movie Killdozer, dozer which comes to life mind

of its own all hyped up with agency and sugar

in its tank, in its belly, in its brutal table manners,

subtexts colonial unawareness the roadmap of Southern

Cross and sky on the ground and magpies waking to loss

as democracy makes tarmac Ö plain song, progredi, headway.

            John Kinsella

If people want to join a discussion of poetry and activism, we are running a list as described below:

Poets and Writers for the Environment
A forum for discussion of how and where literature segues with environmental issues. A zone of literary activism and advocacy for the environment. For poets, writers, and academics.

Stop Destruction of Beeliar Wetlands

The Barnett government in Western Australia is beginning its destructive work in the Beeliar Wetlands in Perth, for the Roe 8 extension -- building a further section of the Roe Highway as part of the planned Perth Freight Link.

First came the fences and the trapping of wildlife -- in intense heat (see the Canberra Times about this) and now the machines.

Today there has been a heavy police presence at the protest camp (protectors' camp) on Malvolio Road in Coolbellup.

You can find out more about the struggle to stop this environmental disaster at Rethink the Link, and at Save Beeliar Wetlands.

If you are in Perth, you can call by and add your presence and support to the protest camp, or you can follow their news online.

Video by J. P. Quinton