Guide to Sydney Crime by Les Wicks - HTML preview

COLOUR

Luciana Croci

Cronulla

Is it rude to stare

when you’re on a beach?

Skimpy costumes and rippling, sun-tanned torsos,

fists clutching tinnies, manicured fingers

smoothing suntan lotion,

what’s there to stare at?

- Eyes can look, fuck off,

get off our beach,

- Hey, I come here in my spare time

to save you cunts from drowning,

Then a punch and a push and a fight  

- Fuck off lebs, fuck off wogs,

           we grew here, you flew here,

- We came in planes, yous came in chains

u convict dogs.

Graffiti war declared on city walls.

Car-convoys, burnouts,

bars-bats-knives-machetes,

firebombs, broken windows,

revenge and aussie pride.

Police in riot gear and alan jones

high on a pedestal

baiting bikie gangs to join the fray.

Melees in punchbowl parks, 

kicks in the head,

fractured nose and eye-socket.

Not good days to be out

if you’re slightly black or tanned

or wear a headscarf

or tall and blonde

or you’re an aussie slut.

Arrests, trials, punishments,

even a kind of anzac day

marking ten years of the event:

a freedom-party halal-free

bbq on wanda beach.