A drunk aboriginal on the street: A poem 

A drunk aboriginal trembling on the street 

The noise from his heart vents his spleen 

Stolen years obscured at his hobbling feet 

Futility rasps his grasp in the summer heat 

What is his nightmare? What history to share? 

A ghetto reflected in his sunless stare 

In the swamp of his mind-wracking pain 

of living in the throes of blameless shame 

Does he have the love of wife and children? 

That cower in imposed indignity’s burden 

His innocence blood-stained, his fire robbed 

with his heritage stripped and flogged  

Is he calm at all when he is not drunkenly insane? 

Does he rue the captive, tormented chronicles in vain? 

Can the world his people’s bitterness trace? 

And give them back what they lost with grace