.jpg)
Sport 26: Autumn 2001
XVI Cane
XVI Cane
1
I saw Wallace
hit Berracone with hand
on face and nose—
blood run out.
There was fire on the floor—
Wallace put Berracone foot in fire
and fire burn Berracone.
Berracone, he sick man then.
2
In their huts men from Malaita, Makira,
men whose homes are Vanuatu,
Guadalcanal, men
are sleeping.
They are the black
of a Queensland night.
In their huts, their noises of sleep
are the whine of a mosquito,
the sweet
drip
of sugar cane.
3
What did they come for,
to this land of sugar
and flour?
The days are long—long
as the light lasts. The cane
rises and falls with the years.
In the black of their huts
they grease firearms, test
the edge to a knife.
4
Hungary killed himself in 1877,
having been observed attempting to starve himself.
He had been depressed and fretted.
His two brothers, engaged with him,
had both died.
Jack hanged himself at his place of abode.
Jack had been sullen for some time.
He said the men from the village of his enemies
chaffed him.
The manager of Richmond Plantation at Mackay
discovered the body of Nungarooarlu
hanging by a fishing line on an acacia tree.
Semen, a servant at Innisfail,
attempted to kill himself while incarcerated,
but only succeeded in self-
castration.
5
Remember Queensland—
remember Kalah?
Kalah of Api Island
was murdered with an axe
by two men from Santo.
6
He returns to the bay he came from.
From the back his buttocks
kiss the ship goodbye.
On his shoulder his breech-
loading rifle, on
his face—
on his face, from here,
who can say?