Poem for the Men on Manus #3 (original)

At the Brass Monkey, men drown their sorrows
While the men on Manus drown in death,
They hold their hands above their heads
And cross their forearms, and cross their legs

One man holds a sign: if Australia owned the air
They would sever our hands off. The men refuse
To go to Hillside, the ‘new’ detention centre
The next concentration camp, looted by locals.

We learn from Behrouz Boochani, a lifer
Who says he has spent more years behind bars
Than he has been free, Behrouz Boochani
Novelist and writer, sufferer of my inhumanity.

He tweets that the men have had their medicines
Cut off, that locals switched off the Hillside generators
And the security were helpless to stop them,
That they have been deprived of having access to food,

Water, power and medication for more than sixteen days.
Wing Xen tweets back: “you need to stop
Your complaining and go where you are told.
Your behaviour is disgusting and childish.”