Billy Marshall Stoneking, U.S.A Bio: Billy Marshall Stoneking is a poet, playwright, filmmaker and critic. He is the author of seven books and currently lecturing in screenwriting at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney, Australia. |
On Bring in the Pintupi (after Nosepeg Tjurpurrula) Whitepella bin go n round for nothin night n day bring em here / old people punished! very bad trip flour, clothes, sugar eat em long - kell em tinna corn beef tinna fruit / first time they bin eat em flour good people in bush country bloody whitepella bin go n bring em spoil em mob properly kill em all the way from the bush No Love from Papunya Someone loves Alice she writes on the walls, on the sides of sheds: "one boy, only him", in white paint that drips and runs. Two sisters, promised to old men, giggle behind their hands; as the words dry, laugh themselves to tears. At the school, boys have drawn phallic shapes on all the doors, propped up with giant balls at initiation time. The new teachers furnish classrooms with alphabet and number games / A - C - D - C / Alice is prolific; lifts her dress behind the hospital. Two girls into old men goes once. Assimilation / Westrn desert/ 1962-1974 I On the first night all the people buried their tins of meat; it was the wrong colour - it'd been dead too long. On the second night - more tins. A few crazy people swallowed the meat. They were hungry, and the white fella smiled. Third night the crazy people wre still alive so everyone started lining up for meat - a single file. Fourth night a white fella showed all those ladies and men the key on the bottom of the tin. On the fifth night all the people were opening their own. On the sixth night Titus took Matthew's meat by accident - and had his head split open in a fight. II Tjakamarra says: "Before camp pie and shoes, before motor car and Jesus, before missionary and baby money, before mining company and police, before rifle and English, before guitar, before card games, before the Queen, before pens, pencils and comic books, before movies and rock and roll, before blankets, before grog, cigarettes, pills, bandages, baked beans, telephones, chicken and soap; before doors and scissors, crowbars and tooth doctors... we ate kumpurarrpa berries and kangaroo, bush turkey, taakurtutu, witchetty grub and yiparlu. Yipilypa! Happy! Never yawning before the hunt, we dug cooking holes in the sand, sitting back on our heels while our spirits stood straight up in our bodies. Now, all our names are written down in books, and flour keeps the people, and tea and sugar keep the people, and everyone is living close to clothes." III This boy learned how to read This boy learned how to write This girl learned how to add This person learned how to speak This child learned how to count This boy says ABC's up to Q This child eats pencils - no breakfast This girl says "yessir" / says "no sir" This one lost her book This boy is 75% This child erases These people have a word for this, one word; translated it means: "Oh me! How my spirit grows short!" Tjungurrayi's Werd Book fil in the blanks: Run --------- me Sit --------- me You live in hair Stand ---------- and Hand ----------- and and ---------- Tools are kept in this --------- The tooth is deep The flag blows in the pram We will play need & seek a tray of days a roof wall a word that means begin -------- (?) More than one bone ---------- More than one stone ---------- More than one note ---------- I have ten cents to cry Sorry Business (A B C D E F G ) He was attacked with a shovel spear. They had been drinking. (Answer yes or No) Hot day. Everyone had been swimming. (Complete the sequence: 8, 10, 11, 13,...) The card game collapsed. The wound packed with ash. (One out of twenty) The woman struck their heads with billy cans. (Good Girl!) Blood trickled onto print dresses. Willie Tjungurrayi is dead. In the school, behind the fence, the staff discusses the problem of attendance. Custody Sweat rolls down between her speech as baby fumbles in the sand. Her nulla - nulla swings and tears the air. That woman's daughter "who got my son a broken neck," she says, "that ones gonna pay and her aunties..." Someone swats the flies away from baby's face. And a man carrying four spears watches and waits. And that one - "maggot vagina" - that one's gonna pay for that broken neck in Alice Springs jail. everybody's gonna pay. It happens so quickly - - the digging stick, a scream & blood everywhere. Yelling and shouting. a policeman opens the back of the van & hands baby into the cage. Riley riley died last night without campfire without family without wind or the sand without a dollar in the bank without two good kidneys without a hand in his hand from too much medicine from too much pain not because he was poor not because he was black not because he was misunderstood no, not because of any of these, no most assuredly not, no of course not, not at all, not at all. Opening night / Canberra / 1974 (after Billy Stockman) Sun on hand disappears Eagle in stomach flies away. Bush tucker, might be. Dry river, somewhere. Can't know this country. No singing here. No breasts, no body paint. Proper whitefella way. Champagne Bow-tie Ashtray Flying ants. Forget about dance. Campfire nothing. Long way, my camp. Can't know this game. Lights too bright. Woman hunting lipstick, chicken & painting. Penises unoffered. No shame. All works Copyright Billy Marshall Stoneking |
BMP nzpoetsonline |
BMP nzpoetsonline |
