what can a butter

                of sunlight smeared on a leaf

                                     tell us about morality

                          or family? that the underside

                                 is a night one can’t

                             differentiate from morning?
                                                  or if i filled a bag

                                    with pebbles from the Yangtze

                                               and told you to take them

                                         to the end of the sky

                                                            would you find walking

                                                                      bottomless?

                                                               or collapse

                                                     from exhaustion?
                                 could you watch the way

                                           words float through years

                              only to get stuck some-

                                    where on an escarpment

                         in a mess of lantana and flax

                                          drawing meaning out

                              from the senses   unmeaning

                                          in their essence   to locate

                                      the self in some planetary

                                                  syntax of symbols 
                                                                        in search   one might say

                                                                   to let letters loose

                                                                                of logic   
                                                                       or to a logic

                                                      let loose of letters

                                                              opting instead

                                             for simple transfers

                                                 tensing muscles in blood

                                     like ferns in soil

                                             the oomph and ahh

                                      straining legs

                                farting and sweating

                                   to ground a branch

                        to stumble upon 
                                     a
               l             g                  g     
         o                i                        r	
            n             a                    e

                    e       n           y

                               t

                           i      b                                       rooted  beside

                           r     a 	                                  a brick chimney

                          o      r                                     shaft           which

                        n         k                                 channelled         air

                                                                     down                  to the

                                                                    Kemira             Colliery

                                                                  where coal                was

                                                                cut                                 from

                                                               Mt.                                  Kiera

                                                             loaded                                 onto

                                                       wagons                        and driven

                                            down to               Wollongong port

                         along a track                  you now walk

                 tracing a                       coal path

      through                     Country
 	 	 			       

* * * * *


                                                    in 1982 BHP sought to sack

                                                hundreds of Kemira’s workers

                                                      but in protest 31 miners

                                     stayed underground for 16 days

                                               while mass demonstrations

                                                        filled Wollongong’s streets

                                         and a train took thousands

                                                   of workers to Canberra

                                     where they protested against

                                                the Fraser government’s apathy

                                          toward the retrenchment  
                       when the workers arrived at Parliament

                            ALP leaders Hayden and Hawke

                    were waiting to address them from a stage

                                    while a flimsy barricade and a few police

                         stood defending Parliament House

                             but the workers swept past the stage

                 broke through the barricade   stormed up

                                                the steps of Parliament

                            and smashed their way through the doors

                                   chanting ‘we want jobs’

                                                                                  ‘we want jobs’

                                 ‘we want jobs’                                                       ‘we want jobs’

                                                                ‘we want jobs’

‘we want jobs’                             ‘we want jobs’                           ‘we want jobs’

                       ‘we want jobs’

                                                                       ‘we want jobs’                        ‘we want jobs’

      ‘we want jobs’                ‘we want jobs’

                                                              ‘we want jobs’                                     ‘we want jobs’

            ‘we want jobs’                                                           ‘we want jobs’  
 					      

* * * * *


Kemira Colliery coal works fatalities
1871 – John Cole, miner (fall of stone, leaving a wife and three children)

1871 – John Coombes, miner (killed by stone block whilst working with father-in-law, Thomas Allum)

1879 May 14th  – Joseph Seal, miner (roof fall)

1880 Sep 24th – Thomas Allum, labourer (run over by wagon on incline)
1884 Sep 6th – Andrew Bell, miner (fall of coal)

1885 Nov 14th – Thomas Dumphy, miner (fall of coal) 
1887 Jan 30th – Thomas Danby, wheeler (fall of coal)

1888 Oct 4th – Robert Kenning, points boy (run over by set)  
1896 Aug 28th – James Goldrick, horse driver (wagon on incline)

1897 Sep 13th – Charles Benjamin Drew, shunter (crushed between wagon buffers)
1900 Oct 15th – Patrick Hayes (natural causes)

1906 Jul 10th – John Dobing, 71, brakeman (runaway skip) 
1906 Sep 20th – John Dumphy, 35, miner (roof fall)

1908 Aug 31st – William McDonald, 56, Deputy (trip and fall) 
1910 Mar 4th – Thomas Francis O’Brien, miner (heart failure)

1910 Mar 17th – Frederick Peterson, 30, miner (roof fall) 
1912 Jan 19th – John Charles Wilson, 36, shiftman (fall of stone)

1915 Jun 17th – Joseph Hay, 53, miner (roof fall)
1930 Apr 15th – Frederick Walker, miner (fall of stone)

1939 Sept 18th – Antonio Carollo, shiftman (died from injuries)
1948 Nov 8th  – Harold Whitehead, welder’s labourer (electrocution)

1949 May 25th – Keith Arnett, lamp man (crushed between battery loco and surface tipping ramp) 
1950 Mar 28th  – Eric James, coal cutter operator (crushed upon slipping under the coal cutter)

1951 Nov 15th  – Walter Hurt, battery loco driver (fatal injuries when colliding with a derailed 6 ton capacity mine car)