Having Given Up the Ghost, Sweeney Flies in With Seedlings to Help Stitch the Wound

A traumatic wound — gashed open to the bone.

But the Emperor and his Jester are up the creek

without a paddle, wading against their own effluent.

A traumatic wound — gashed open to the bone.

The spell feeding on the workers like dermonecrosis

is broken, and they disperse into healthier skin.

A traumatic wound — gashed open to the bone.

Having given up the ghost, Sweeney flies in with

seedlings of native vegetation to help stitch the wound.

A traumatic wound — gashed open to the bone.

In the sand the bushland had grown from, Sweeney

knows country is still alive and consults with the Elders.

A traumatic wound — gashed open to the bone.

It can be healed. Its essence is spilling out like a balm.

The red-tailed cockatoos are thinking of the decades ahead.

            John Kinsella

So let's hope this is the end of the assault on the Beeliar wetlands, and that replanting and healing of the damaged land begins immediately. Of course, for many creatures and much vegetation it is too late. This is a message of thanks and well-wishing to all protesters past and present at the site.

Asbestos at Coolbellup Bush Site

By John

The Western Australian government, the police and their private enterprise cronies and agents have deleted the Coolbellup bush and left us a legacy of dispersed asbestos fibres. A class action is needed and I hope this will happen. (The private enterprise cronies should be boycotted.)

This poem below was written a short while ago when there was still bush left in this section of the Roe 8 highway extension 'area'.

All will suffer the consequences of asbestos, and this from a government that was responsible for the (literal) installation of asbestos products in the ceiling spaces of the new children's hospital, and asbestos dispersal in roadside mulch (and who knows where else) in one recent case.

The contempt for life in all its forms shown by these people is obvious, but that they actually see themselves as champions of Western Australia and its 'way of life' (what on earth is this in actuality?) speaks volumes for their ignorance, arrogance and cruelty.

The trauma so many people are experiencing in seeing rare bushland habitat deleted from the Perth city region will not be 'got over'. It is long-term and is akin to trauma felt during disaster and war.

We are writers writing in times of catastrophe faced with a 'hebephrenic' power elite (hebephrenic in Hodge & Mishra's sense) who will force what they see as necessary on us all.

I read an appalling article the other day on a site dedicated to commentary on GM science, and while discussing the genetic manipulation of mice to 'turn on their hunting instinct', the journalist sought to normalise the process as being something akin to 'natural'. And all this with the advocacy of 'science not ideology'.

Sorry, but such acts are pure ideology, as is the Roe 8 debacle — it is an act of ideology, not of community wellbeing or sound public planning. It is about greed, profit and power. The ability to make in one's own image.

The result: toxic fallout, further damage to the biosphere, and the massive loss of all sorts of creatures' lives.

Blue Hazmat Suits in the Coolbellup Bush Prior to its Destruction

A premonition or a delayed reaction?

A parody of deaths from blue asbestos,

fibres invading Tracy’s father’s lungs,

and lungs of so many others we’ve known.

And as the wound is widened, stretched

by sadists, blue hazmat suits are seen

bobbing in and out of the undergrowth,

a consummate piece of pastoral diplomacy

played out on crown land, a colonial

power-trip for the born-again remittance men,

their shock troops without masks

breathing deep the dust from the dozer,

from the mulcher; O lèse-majesté flexes

as the arrests mount and fibres fall out

and about, confetti for this wedding

of development and annihilation,

such comfortable bedfellows. And

so the evidence mounts, the bushland

is riddled with dumped asbestos products,

the tests verify, and then evidence

is suppressed, misplaced, dispersed,

deleted. O fibres dispersed throughout

the suburbs into lungs of all ages, all conditions,

do you expect us to be grateful?

And still the juggernaut, transparency

of fences revealing the antiworld,

where ghosts prevaricate, disorientated.

Children breathe here, you bastards.

And remember that smug capitalist

eating asbestos on his breakfast cereal?

Publicity stunt, but some bought it.

Softly softly among the rowdy machines.

Fibres beneath fingers.

Fibres in noses, mouths, lungs.

Fibres on clothes, on uniforms taken home,

dispersed among loved ones.

            John Kinsella

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

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