Month of Poetry #26: Australia Day

Every year, for Australia Day, I write a fairly angsty, angry villanelle. This year's is even less hopeful than last year's.  However, I would like you to note the fact that I managed to find FIVE rhymes or near-rhymes for "invasion", which wasn't so damn easy :-)

a day for a sunshine discontented land
marking not nationhood, but invasion
don’t lie: it’s stolen, where we stand.

everywhere, we’re being told it’s grand
our country with such a fraught gestation
a day for a sunshine discontented land

wasn’t there a song about soil and sand
that said that all are welcome to our nation?
don’t lie: it’s stolen, where we stand.

the rich get richer; was that what we planned?
as the poor, ever with us, wait at the station
a day for a sunshine discontented land

two worlds at least, now, this brown landscape spanned
spirit-narrowing of greed may bring damnation
don’t lie: it’s stolen, where we stand.

a fist in velvet looms the master’s hand
and tighter daily draws this grim ligation
a day for a sunshine discontented land
don’t lie: it’s stolen, where we stand.

- Kathy, 26/1/14