'Manus'- a new poem by Thomas Connelly

Manus

Thomas Connelly

Wrench-snatched from the rapacious hands of slow to start 

Imperial Germany, Imperial England Victorious gave 

To ever obedient Australia this tasty morsel of colonial 

Land. The Trust Territory of New Guinea.

North East part of the island and the sun swaying isles 

Of bird of paradise dancers and the crystalline 

Sausage and law making waves upon waves crashing 

The Bismark Blood & Iron Sea.

          And Little Billy told Wilson and such: 

                   "Strategically the northern islands

                   (such as New Guinea)

                    Encompass Australia

                    Like fortresses. 

                    They are as necessary To Australia 

                   As water to a city."

The ruling bourgeoisie more and more seeks salvation in fascism. 

And in 1942 when the inevitable war with Imperial Japan came, 

A handful of diggers and a radio tower on Manus. 

Air raids and bombings and then a landing, and the diggers

Dove into the bush, destroying all the could not carry 

          Private Coker commented

                     "A hand-grenade, 

                      and run like hell, 

                      did the trick!"

And fighting the jungle and malaria and 

Lieutenant Palmer

                    (cited for Military Medal)

 “He was unable to walk for several weeks

For severe septic infection on his arms and leg”

 “Weakness due to several attacks of malaria.”

         

                              SO

Lance-Corporal McLean 

Took command the four man patrol & 

Found the Lutheran Mission firmly

 In Japanese hands. So they beat it out of there

 Fortuitous heavy jungle obscuring rain 

And the relentless beating sound 

Of rain falling covered the retreat. 

Through swamp and jungle and cutting grass 

And illness and starvation, and then on boats 

The sailed the IJN cruised sea 

And overland and over mountains 

And final hope home Cairns in May.

The ruling bourgeoisie are trying to solve the problem of markets 

By enslaving the weak nations, 

By intensifying colonial oppression & 

Repartitioning the world anew by means of war.

And then in February leap year day 29 1944

 Diggers and Doughboys crawling up the Solomons Islands 

And the Trust Territories landed Manus Island.

Guadalcanal, Milne Bay, Buna, The Bismark Sea, Lae, 

Rabaul, Scarlet Beach, Finschhafen. Diggers and Doughboys 

ANZACS and sad sack dog faced GIS fought with 

Bayonet and machine gun with flame thrower and demo charge

 With cannon and aircraft. And the things they saw and did 

Broke many of them 1000 yard shell shock PTSD stare. 

Crawling mud and poisoned insect snake bite green hell 

Jungle. Pushing back the venal bestial racist fascist

Ideology of the anti-comintern, rolling back the fascist 

Offensive. Manus Island attacked, and shortly captured.

Well, now time passed and now it seems.

Everybody’s having them dreams. 

Everybody sees themselves. 

Walking around with no one else. 

Dreams of a land without the others, dreams of an end to history 

And end to the stresses and uncertainties of capitalism,

Dreams of an obsolete discredited ideology 

Old man old school old timey dreams of controlling the external Dreams that somehow it will end differently, that we can close Our eyes and everything will somehow be all right.

                                 BUT -

Fascism is a most ferocious attack by capital on the mass of the working people;

Fascism is unbridled chauvinism and predatory war;

Fascism is rabid reaction and counter-revolution;

Fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and of all working people.

And now we can imagine and see on this very spot a wild eyed

Dare-death opium and hunger fueled banzai attack - 

Shooting from the hip and shouting wild the Japanese Marines 

Fall upon the position. Hacking and attacking and striking out 

In all directions. Indiscriminate. And after the smoke and noise 

Clears broken bodies of empty hope the result of lies, of a cynical 

Grab-lust for power. Unbridled chauvinism. Rabid reaction.

Predatory war. 

For what is a squaddie if not a proletarian?

                              

And then, as if a final spitting in our face 

Historic irony, it was here, when we almost half-believed

In a new world, in a better world, 

In a world that does not need to resort to war 

And endless horror. 

It was here in 1950 that Australia held the last trials against Japanese 

War criminals.

And Nauru Pleasant Phosphate Island, a second morsel to be savoured

And shared jointly exploited ANZAC & England. Captured and by- passed

And withered on the vine. And abused by the great and torn up and emptied

And in 1989 Australia was sued for damages done to the island; 

The island put in our trust as a token – 

Not enough, never enough to reward the slaughters of Flanders 

And Turkey.

And did those country bumpkins, did those inner city hooligans

Signing up for adventure, signing up for their first pair of shoes,

In fear and bravado, did they, shivering in their watery slit trenches; 

Did they do all this, so much waste and horror, did they liberate 

The camps so that we too can build camps?

Thomas Connelly sent in this poem today. He writes that he lives in Tasmania with his family in a town called Dodges Ferry. "I wrote this poem yesterday and read it at the MONA markets in the afternoon."
The poem will be published in a Postmistress Press anthology later this year. Ruth Skilbeck 23.2.2014