ALWAYS AND AGAIN
Always and Again is a poem written by queer Goorie writer, Brooke Scobie.
Joy doesn’t live here
Not really
Not for us
Iron strokes
Of concrete colony
Split country in two
Papier-mâché skull
Melted sky saliva and silver lichen
Here where the world has ended
251 times under and again
Here with you, without us
Joy is a liar
A thief
Our river lined and secret truth
Joy is in spirit
Living tendrils growing emerald
Curled round synapses
Alive and dreaming
In our sibylline desires
Of a future where
Was is
Is was
Always and round
Collective sight
Fore, fifth and sixth
Grandmother melaleuca
Twists titanium spines
Lantana and cinder block dust
Pyre ships billow
Blackened and rusted
Night thrones of
Glass shard sand
No longer rise to meet the sea
Beset with karkalla
Bellies full of thunderous silence
Lines undrawn flow from parted lips
And joy is real
For she lives here
With us
Soft under foot
Once tended tender
Land back and stood back
Joy is was
Was is
Always and again.
Joy doesn’t live here
Not really
Not for us
Iron strokes
Of concrete colony
Split country in two
Papier-mâché skull
Melted sky saliva and silver lichen
Here where the world has ended
251 times under and again
Here with you, without us
Joy is a liar
A thief
Our river lined and secret truth
Joy is in spirit
Living tendrils growing emerald
Curled round synapses
Alive and dreaming
In our sibylline desires
Of a future where
Was is
Is was
Always and round
Collective sight
Fore, fifth and sixth
Grandmother melaleuca
Twists titanium spines
Lantana and cinder block dust
Pyre ships billow
Blackened and rusted
Night thrones of
Glass shard sand
No longer rise to meet the sea
Beset with karkalla
Bellies full of thunderous silence
Lines undrawn flow from parted lips
And joy is real
For she lives here
With us
Soft under foot
Once tended tender
Land back and stood back
Joy is was
Was is
Always and again.