Orcas are Not AUKUS

Prologue

They play

with eras

and oceans

with orcas

and strategies

of death

as unreal

as the pandemic

was to them

when it started

its run silent run deep

expedition

around

the planet.

    from Cellnight

Australia's arms race purchase of nuclear submarines from the US and UK is an endgame. The promise of thousands of jobs in an industry of death, and participation in the nuclear threat to the biosphere (accidents, leaks, and consequences of war), show that the obsession with a 'cradle to grave' nuclear industry is being made real in all its eschatological manifestations. All other 'smiling faced' policy shifts are meaningless in the face of such a threat to the well-being of the entire planet. The above lines are the prologue (written late in the process) to my verse novel Cellnight, which is a condemnation of the nuclear and military sell, and a consideration of how its toxicity affects all life. Though the book is based in the 1980s during the American Fleet visits, it is sadly as relevant now, and maybe more so. AUKUS is the ultimate embodiment of contemporary colonialism that deploys language in ways that pretends it's not. It is, and its 'run silent run deep' name is death. 

    John Kinsella

Forest Raves Are a Severe Threat to Ecologies

Forest Raves Fuck Up The Forest

Forest raves fuck up the forest —

the doof doof annihilation

of the birds barely registered,

 

the minuscule syrinxes, the costumed

feathers, the hyperstimulated skin,

the padded nests you can collapse

 

into exhausted but still willing

to party on, tossing the fledglings

out on the forest floor to be stomped,

 

hands reaching to the canopy

& twilight’s nimbus — a false

friend of freedom, a flattering

 

admirer of the rubbished moon. And

the spreading of cinnamon fungus as you rave

to avoid limitations on venue numbers

 

due to Covid, the imitation of animals

that has no respect or understanding

for the animals imitated, a cultural

 

mocking, the melding with an ecology

which you destroy as effectively as farmers

& mountain bikers. You can doof to this doof.

 

You can crank up the energy consumption.

You can max out on the tools of capitalism.

You can carbonate in full immersion.

 

And so the fire twirlers in dry & heat-stricken

woodlands, & so the off-your-face open air

self-discovery & bonding rituals,

 

& so the mockery of all ancient knowledges,

& so the colonial paradoxes seem to be reset

with every alternative setting, each contra-

 

indication... & so the party at the end of the world

which is dance beats as utility as centres

in which you are the anonymous sole attraction,

 

the contradiction of liberation,

the raving exploitation of nature,

as your forest rave fucks up the forest

 

as you do the work for mining companies,

land developers, dispossessors and pastoralists,

as your forest rave fucks up the forest.

 

 

            John Kinsella

Save 'Julimar State Forest'/Julimar Conservation Park from Chalice Mining!

I have just put this petition up at Change.Org for any of you willing to sign (see below plus link). Addressing governments, especially when they are so embedded with the mining industry, is a forlorn and fraught process, but every peaceful method must be tried:

Chalice Mining is attempting to develop a nickel, copper, cobalt and PGE mine at the 'Gonneville deposit' near the 'Julimar State Forest'/Julimar Conservation Park, Western Australia. Their end of 2020 statement claims — 'Julimar PGE-Ni-Cu-Co-Au discovery' [is] 'advancing rapidly to maiden resource'. The company is targeting the 28 000-hectare Julimar Conservation Park as part of their 'exploration' and potential exploitation of the 'deposit'. As cited in the Financial Review (November 9th, 2021) regarding exploratory drilling in the forest, 'Mr Dorsch said he was expecting approval to drill soon and the company was “raring to go”.'

Despite claiming it's all for the well-being of the world (minerals useful for carbon-reducing technology — 'green technology'), the destruction of the ecologically vital and unique Julimar forest will be a crime against the environment and the biosphere. The forest must be protected against such a flagrant rapacity that is ultimately based on nothing more than profiteering and indifference to environmental world-health.

The forests and bushland of Western Australia are already under great pressure from mining, and we plead with you to prevent this activity. We have an obligation to all life on this planet to prevent the damage and destruction of remaining habitats.

Link to Protect Julimar Forest petition. [Note the anti-tree propaganda in the Financial Review article, aligning the area with middle-class wealth (which is untrue), attempting to divide and conquer via mining labour demographics when it's the mega-wealthy who most benefit from such mining.]

Also, I beg you all to consider the threat to the Manning Ridge from mountain-biking proponents. See and look at 'concerns'. And here is a poem in support of that campaign:

Manning Ridge, Beeliar Regional Park, Whadjuk Noongar Boodja

Parrot bush is a flowering of white-tailed

black cockatoos is a flowering of limestone 

is a flowering of the essence of terrain. 

Mountain bikes are not biodiverse, 

mountain bike trails are not circulatory 

systems, mountain bikes and the trails 

made for them to traverse bring no rare species 

back from the brink, bring no warmth 

or comfort to country. Mountain bikes

compress the ridge, break the back

of habitat. When riders ride into their future

they delete the future for so much else.

Bandicoots and lined skinks know I visited

as a child, trying to hear what they had to say —

their memories are passed on through

limestone, through woodlands

and shrublands. I won’t forget

their gifts. Now I speak out.

Parrot bush is a flowering of white-tailed

black cockatoos is a flowering of limestone 

is a flowering of a future.

Remember. Act. Remember.

John Kinsella

And for all the protesters resisting the tree and village-destroying expansion of the horrific Garzweiler lignite mine in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany:

Graphology Lambent 28: for the protesters against the Garzweiler lignite mine

False light false warmth the pit dilating

to consume trees and villages, filling

atmosphere with false signs false breath —

that dirty heat that warms only death.

But those of you sitting to block ‘progress’

will bring life with every delay — you redress

our failure as the cranes migrate.

John Kinsella

The destruction of habitat and contamination of the biosphere are such a multiplex concurrence of 'events' that unless we resist all of these assaults at once, and say enough to all such behaviour and activity, they will overwhelm the planet.