Poem for the Men on Manus #4 (original)

I heard my leaders screaming
Get in line, yet lines move, metamorphise
Like government offices maturing,
Losing their puppy fat, forgoing the rules.

Four years locked up for ‘queue jumping’
When these men, men who don’t know
Where the line begins, where the reef starts
Where the shrapnel lands.

Your fate is to walk Northbridge streets
In early November, sweat beads on your forehead
As you read that four hundred and four men
Are trapped on Manus, trapped in detention.

Your fate is to feel hopeless and powerless
And lucky you’re not trapped in a hell hole
Like the men on Manus, the four hundred and four
Who feel bullet holes in the perimeter fence.

Oh, my brothers, my leaders have turned their backs
On the ocean and their sand castles will soon crumble
Next to the PNG Navy, who drink to get drunk
And fire shots into our detention centre.

Drawing by Emma Hewitt, used with permission.