The walls around Australia
are long grey waves
rolling continuously
over untold stories, deaths unlamented,
unceremonious sea burials
of excised truth.

The walls within the mind
are shadowed backdrops
for phantom fears re-conjured
by dalangs who've discarded all the voices
except the monotonal chorus of some scripted lines
re-drawn in shifting sands.

The walls inside Australia
wail with echoes
of convicts flogged, the stolen ones,
the silent scream of stitched-up lips, last cries
of our grandchildren's children drowning
anonymously

beneath the walls around Australia.