'Monster (0.2 Reloaded)' a new poem by Samuel Wagan Watson
I can’t speak my grandmother’s tongue and I’ve never been on
my grandfather’s land. I’ve traveled here and I’ve traveled there,
my culture is fabricated in government-funded laboratories
… I am Frankenstein of the Dreamtime, I am Frankenstein
of the Dreamtime. Reanimated flesh that once sang natural
song-lines, surgically removed my Christian soul and repaired
it with Indigenous design … I am a patriot to a black, yellow
and red flag, yet I am colour-blind … I am Frankenstein of the
Dreamtime. I am a mutation of the white Australia policy,
I am Frankenstein of the Dreamtime … I am in the Prime
Minister’s nightmares, I am a self-educated Aborigine, I am
the Prime Minister’s worst nightmare. I am Frankenstein of
the Dreamtime … I scare some white people with my English,
and some black people too, I am a Frankenstein of the Dream-
time. Today people will sing ‘Advance Australia Fair’ and like
the abomination that I am, I can only ask Advance Australia
Where? Thinking black is a thought-crime. I have no need for
Queen or desecrated country, only Australian nationalism can
define, I’m a renegade of Indigenous context, I am Frankenstein
of the Dreamtime … I was born into a family of song-people …
ink courses my veins, I am Frankenstein of the Dreamtime … I
am a songman not by a lifestyle choice … I am one of Tony Ab-
bott’s monsters, hiding under his bed … I think like his version
of a monster, therefore I am, Frankenstein of the Dreamtime.
Comment (1)