Port Arthur

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.