This is an old poem written after visiting the colonial penal settlement of Port Arthur in Tasmania. Not only was it the centre of convict punishment and associated atrocities, but in 1996 a local lad with an automatic weapon massacred some 36 people with many others wounded. The incident brought about much stricter gun control in Australia.
Port Arthur
I
stood high on your cold, crumbling sandstone battlements
looked
down on your blood stained, wooden whipping post
listened
quietly to the cat cracking,
callously
cutting what little flesh there was
from
the wayward young waif's guiltless
ruby
rib cage, and I asked the question why
but
I did not feel your pain.
I
read the element eroded epitaphs on your Isle Of The Dead,
both
monument and mausoleum in a picturesque bay,
your
lush bush growth born of decay
symbolic
fallen headstones recounting
dour
struggles for life or even death, if that’s
the
lesser evil, and I asked the question why
but
I did not feel your pain.
I
sat on the smooth stone floor of your solitary confinement cell
slammed
shut the solid cedar door, no solace, no shafts of light,
sensed
the rabid madness still entrapped
inside
this small, dank, airless tomb,
the
torture of total silence echoing through this
perverse
asylum, and I asked the question why
but
I did not feel your pain.
I
stalked your hillside roads by night on a shadowy torchlight tour,
sensed
your ghostly presence crunching on the gravel track behind,
shivered
at your rugged colonial history
its
engrossing tales both tall and true
of
those who once did and perhaps even now
still
do roam here, and I asked the question why
but
I did not feel your pain.
I
knelt in your roofless church, heavenly refuge but hell on earth,
watched
shackled inmates cough their bronchial death throes
heard
redcoat rifle butts thudding
brutally
against masked, miscreant jaws
whispering
heresy at the pulpit preacher
saving
their lost souls, and I asked the question why
but
I did not feel your pain.
I
cowed at the body waste disposal chute in your sordid clinic
repelled
the convict's abject screams at blunt saw amputation,
grinding
gangrenous bones without
real
anaesthetic, just a tot of Gordon's gin,
sniffed
the fizzing, pungent smoke from sealing
tar
on burning flesh, and I asked the question why
but
I did not feel your pain.
I
rested in your Broad Arrow Cafe, resplendent in new season decor,
respite
for milling mothers, their carefree kids seeking souvenirs;
with
mannequins in coarse woollen uniforms and guns
to
parade your living story in sight and sound
supposedly
to shock, but they just mock
this
new generation and I asked the question why
but
I did not feel your pain.
I
absorbed your angel face and blonde hair into my empty heart,
and
in some form of personal atonement for your barbaric deed
pried
open your psychotic mind
smelt
the cankered curse of retribution,
felt
the depraved bullets of hate brush past
my
tearful cheeks, and I asked the question why
but
I did not feel your pain.