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This is poem #28 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write a “what really happened” poem. This poem is about the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre near Sidney, Australia. What happens there is horrifying. I learned about it through the work of Dan Burke (twitter.com/proudreader) via his appearances on the indispensable Citizen Radio.
Villawood
We told them to come and it would be safe.
They were running away. Escaping.
We were a return trip, back across the Styx
toward the stairway that leads to the living.
By the thousands they came. Pleading.
It’s just over this way, we said, through this gate.
And we shut it behind them, locked them in.
Of all people to imprison refugees, doing it here
has a special irony. Here in a land born in prison.
On ground we stole from an ancient people.
Our blood baptism brought forth a new religion.
And now we sacrifice their children — refugee
children — on the altar of our merciless god.
In truth, we’re grateful when they sew
their mouths shut, because their screams
pierce the night and steal from us our dreams
of beer and song and beautiful women.
And when they hang themselves or jump
they spare us the expense of the slow death
we were always planning to give them.
There is a boat across the Styx, and a staircase.
And at the top of the stairs, a gate.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
And welcome to Villawood.
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