Nationality
Its misery bites;
What more can you say.
Walking down a street,
Through a school;
Alone, but yet so surrounded by faces.
Faces which hold back because of facial features.
Faces which aim sharp sounds at your ears.
Faces that are too scared to say sorry.
And faces that are not brown or black.
New Australian, they say;
How can it be?……
Does not birth align you with a Nationality, and a pride for the bush?
Does not the internal patriotism far outweigh the outer shell?
Or is it, that strange ideals irritate their bones,
And upset their sense of pseudo-purity.
Ironic, is it not?
Dark skins were the real owners;
Original and proud, therefore forced to mould unnaturally or die.
Imports form ancient lands were brought;
Rigid in traditions and ways for centuries;
Rolled into newspaper after serving a purpose and expected to disappear.
Which, they now realise does not occur.
Strange, but then does it not make sense?
The first here as well as the invited, were rejected by a pride as strong as it was blind.
Fortunately though, some still see,
And supply a help which many find is a lot better than none.
Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 1983
(7th poem written in 1983 – exact date of writing unknown)