Vasilios Theodorakis – An Online Author

For some time now, my wife and I have been wanting to protest the immoral nature of celebrating Australia’s national day on the day that for many Indigenous Australians represents the genocide of hundreds of Aboriginal Nations across the continent.

Irrespective of what mainstream Australian’s claim the day represents – all that really matters is that far too many Indigenous Australians feel disrespected (yet again) by the celebrations that occur on this day. Aboriginal people’s feelings need to be acknowledged and a more appropriate and inclusive date identified as Australia Day.

Unfortunately, where we live there are no protests to help mark the day. We do however live close to a park that used to be a meeting ground for the Indigenous clans of Moreton Bay. It was used for gatherings for 1000’s of years and we know this (from historical records) because of the midden mounds (that were present at the location) and the fact that local Aboriginal people continued to meet there right into the twentieth century.

To highlight how much mainstream Australian’s valued this meeting place, the Queensland Government forcibly moved the last of the Indigenous people that met there (its unknown what happened to them) and the local council decided to dump its rubbish on the site for a number of decades. The tip was eventually covered up with top soil, ovals were built for sport and a park for dogs was created. Finally the name was changed from Black’s Camp to something more mainstream – Elanora Park, and the fact that the location was important for the local clans was expunged from the public record. The signage at the Park (to this day) makes no reference to its significance to the original peoples.

For two years now, my wife and I have visited the location on Australia Day to pay our respects to the original people who lived on the land that we now live on. This year I wrote the following piece for us to read each and every year until this country acknowledges and begins to respect its Aboriginal people and its Aboriginal past. Health permitting I intend to keep reading this out loud under the figs, next to the mangroves (in the park) every 26th of January, or at least until a more appropriate date for Australia Day is chosen.

“Paying Our Respects – 26th January 2009”

Today we remember our Indigenous brothers and sisters who have been murdered, beaten, raped, diseased, displaced, ignored and forgotten for 221 years.

We remember that they met here peacefully on this midden mound whose name we no longer know.

We remember that here they rested, discussed and resolved problems that the different clans of the Bay encountered for thousands of years.

We remember that we are standing on land which they believed could not be owned but only looked after by humans – i.e. entrusted in guardianship. That all people belong to the land but that the land cannot be owned by any one person.

We remember that as a many Nationed peoples, they were invaded and that the land was never lawfully settled by the non-Indigenous peoples, as no treaties were ever signed with the original inhabitants, as no attempts were made to protect the original languages and culture, and that the original people’s presence was never acknowledged in any meaningful way.

Today we remember that picking this day as the national day of the country is an insult to the surviving Indigenous Australians and disrespects the Indigenous people who died and suffered over the last 221 years. We look forward to a time when this county’s national day is inclusive of all Australians, when its flag represents all Australians and its Head Of State is answerable only to Australians.

Sadly, we had the whole park to ourselves as we read this out loud and reflected on the day.

Personally I think the date on which we become a Republic should be celebrated as Australia Day – a neutral day that includes all people. For example the 1st July – six months from 1st January (Federation Day) might be a good date. Things that also need to be looked at simultaneously include: the republic, the flag, the governor general and the date of Australia Day.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – January 2009

The poem for this week is: Respect.

This piece comes from a series of ungrouped poems written towards the end of 2008.

I’ve also added a link to another author I greatly admire: Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – January 2009

The poem for this week is: Relative

This piece comes from a series of ungrouped poems written towards the end of 2008.

I’ve also added a link to another author I greatly admire: Charles Dickens.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – January 2009

The poem for this week is: Trauma .

This piece comes from a series of ungrouped poems written towards the end of 2008 and reflects on what people go through who manage various forms of P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

I’ve also added a link to another author I greatly admire: Albert Facey.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – January 2009

As the year comes to a close, I’ve managed to pencil a few new poems during the month of December. The first to appear online is Shadow Takes Reality. The other new poems (written during this short but prolific spurt) will also appear on the blog before I resume editing older material.

Though cutting it a bit fine, I should be finishing the year by uploading a single poem per week (as I had hoped). All things going well, I should also be able to stick to this minimum posting in 2009. Again a big thank you to all this blog’s readers who’ve hung around during an excruciating slow 2008.

In addition to Shadow Takes Reality I’ve also added some links to other authors, whose work I’ve read over the years. These include: John Chryssavgis, C.S. Lewis, Frank J. Tipler, Saint Andrew Of Bethsaida and Saint Nicholas Of Myra.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – December 2008

In a time of upheaval,
Nothing can be saved.
My kind left behind the plates where they lay,
Took only one piece of cutlery – just a knife,
And abandoned their linen
To the moths next door.
They locked down the doors,
Boarded up the panes,
Dropped jewelery into wells
And fled into the night.
They stayed off the roads
Made for the salt spray.
And spoke the Young Turks talk,
In order to blend in with the crowds –
Crowds who had come down to see
How red the earth’s tears had turned.
Death then took them all the way
To the promised land
Where the other’s plates were now their’s to claim.
But nothing felt right.
After 86 years
Of living with a pricked conscience – hidden beneath eucalyptus,
This generational itch was resolved.
By chance,
A trip back from the other side
Found the board
Where it was placed
And the plates
Where they were laid.

When queried about this,
The Gorukle replied –
We thought you’d return.
We left everything as it was,
For you were our friends, our brothers, our sisters,
And these things were not ours to take.
It never dawned on the Christians
Who reached the promised land
To extend such a courtesy.
The Christians deserved all that was abandoned
And left nothing for the Moslems to return to –
Moving into their homes almost immediately.
And yet, to this day
My kind
Claim to be the better human beings.
Now why is that again?

Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2008

Not a word, not a whisper,
Not a finger lifted
To query my angst.
Empathy ounced
In minuscule bags,
Is dangled briefly before vestibular eyes
Then shoved
Into bottomless pockets
That shock infect one’s own expression.
The benefit of the doubt
As always – my call,
Led to the dysfunctional response.
Maybe my witness was tainted,
Maybe illness fogged up
These lensed off events,
For I continued to pour
Years of investment
Into one way streets –
Unusual for Melbournian roads.
And this fact,
Should have been my warning heeded.
Yet, I put aside my own rules
And ricocheted forward – until now
Where their personal inconvenience
Body slammed me into the pavement.

These people
Were never family!
Thank goodness
For the Grant-ed role model,
Which now fills the void
The emotional chasm left behind
By those who tainted the sacred.

Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2008

Us
The lone dogs of war
Feel safe –
Only when “C” follows “B” and “B” follows “A”.
Our need for things to stay the same,
To have beginnings, middles and ends – is non-negotiable.
For those civilians
Looking through our blasted front doors,
These regimented lives – these routines,
Look restricted at best.
How impossible it is
To explain that this approach
Makes us feel good,
Keeps us sane
And able to face another day.
Soldier, Stray or Survivor,
Our physical form, our truthful tales
Are always irrelevant.
All that matters is the outcome.
Trauma, to the point
Of life ending now,
Lands us in the same trench
Clenching, ground down teeth,
And stabbing true,
At any
Who attempt to drag us from our fox holes.
No ones fault – in the end,
Just life gone wrong
And we cope through continued containment,
Whether at the gym,
In the garden,
Or – alone.

“Traumateous Polemous” (translation – injuries of war)
Was my grandfather’s term.
I sometimes wonder
If he imagined
Such things could occur
Within the sterile walls
Of Suburbia.

Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2008

Unfortunately this last year hasn’t quite gone to plan. An acute relapse of an old medical condition has taken centre stage and thrown a spanner in the works of both my writing and normal work. As a result I haven’t been able to stick to resuming my poetry uploads on the 11th January 2008, as I had hoped.

The aim now is to recommence work on this blog at some point in 2008 and maintain a regular upload each week – irrespective of how small that upload might be. Grandiose expectations of editing and uploading 4 poems a week have fallen by the wayside and just uploading a single piece might prove more realistic. My appologies to people who have been visiting here since the 11th of January. My condition is such that I don’t have much control over its state, and have to work its management into my daily routine. This often means it takes precidence over everything else – especially when it gets acute.

I’ve finally added some wiki links to two other authors I greatly admire – Robert Louis Stevenson and Nikos Kazantzakis. Both these writers were brilliant social commentators in their time, challenging issues of inequity every step of the way. In spite of no longer being a practicing social worker myself, social justice is never too far from my mind, no matter what type of work I’m carrying out. Thus, my ongoing interest in the writings of such people like Stevenson and Kazantzakis.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – October 2008

Believing nothing
I am here
Quantified in person
Sanctified in self
Staring into the mirror
And gagging on my own essence.
I could not have imagined
Such horror as a child.
A world where humanity
Is inexcusable, and its presence unwanted
By its own origins.
I grieve for all beings
And the good in my kind,
For the Sapien has become a patsy,
Drunk in its quest for murder
And clinging to genes
Linked to the structural guilt of superiority.
This psychic bile is piled up at our feet
And slung across the room
At the God Head.
All in the hope
That it’ll stick to Him and not us.
Like all others,
I was taught to look away at such things.
But the screams will not be silenced
In my mind (nor beyond),
No matter how much separation
We distill upon ourselves.
And so, I find myself an accomplice
To these crimes,
Just through breath and being.
Each moment now
Strikes the gong of grief
As the pain is witnessed
Within the eyes of the other.
The minuscule good
That remains in my kind
Will not be enough to redeem
The billions killed
Nor the billions yet to die.

Awake at last
We know there will be
No further sleep,
For sentience
Demands action
When faced with truth
And our earthly role,
To voice the voiceless,
Must be placed on a pedestal and heeded,
In spite of the hordes
And what they might do,
When finally, we speak!

Audio Version (To Be Added)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2008