Damian Balassone, on the poverty of spirit.
Damian Balassone
Once I ruled the Northern plains,
my clan roamed free and wild,
the lush Dakotas were my home,
the gods were on my side.
Every leafy shrub was mine,
every blade of grass,
every creature trembled when
a herd of bison passed.
My family has been slaughtered
for food, for prize, for fun,
of all the kings that roamed the earth
I’m now the only one.
Am I now a laughing stock?
The object of your pity?
A weakling of the prairies, while
you prosper in the city?
And who was it that killed my clan?
Let’s set the record straight:
that bastard son of Europe’s womb —
A son has just been born to me
but I am in Afghanistan,
when I was born my father fought
the Viet-Cong in Vietnam.
My grandpa blazed Kokoda’s trail
and stalled the ruthless Japanese,
his father fell in World War I;
a martyr in the Pyrenees.
His father fought the Afrikaans,
I think in 1899,
his father stopped the Chinese throngs
from claiming gold in Daylesford’s mines.
We first came to Van Diemen’s Land
way back in 1834,
our forebear stole a block of cheese
and thus was shipped to southern shores.
I’ll teach my son to hate them all:
John Fleming still rides free
one hundred and seventy years after
the massacre. The plaque set up to
honour the twenty-eight (who were
slaughtered for the theft of a cow)
has been defaced by Fleming who
is still very much alive in Northern