I’ve held,
all the fillings of a twenty-five-dollar panini, in my coconut head
doesn’t matter how pink the layers of flesh,
always a brownface pores on the grill.
inner North, cultures go to die, swallowed in white cubes, domiciled
turning inner monologues of what hides affordable
against the count of other meals
I need that
week. I am thrifty with fillings,
other gloved hands hover, I slowly back away
from thin clear skin layered on white bread, pleading single origin
$4.50 Sri Lankan tea,
all the while, a palm tree
postering for sunny Ceylon, on the pastels
you lick
your fingers, of my ancestors,
over minimalist lattes.I’ve scrubbed,
to raw the bleeding infamy
of turmeric spreading across the pink
of my nails, the cracked and earthen
smell, of cardamom, the shame, pressing down,
of everything I touch
turning to mud, brown, in a sunburnt country
with all white dreams, of virginal land rights
and maiden plains, to share.I diluted,
everything,
to be like you.but milky tea,
is still tea,
however condensed.
even, the milk of my father’s
Carnation brand, cracked lip of borrowed can,
clandestine highs, trading sugars, cannot blunt
the tannic, dull agonies, the broached, and civilised tongue of
your violent explorations.I heard,
chai was made by iridescent brown
women, adding clove, anise, whose fertility was
stolen, under armed guise of civility, missions white-washed sympathies
when they couldn’t scrape
black leaf for ever opening mouths
of trade, tongues they can’t turn away
the appetites of empire
take their roasted leaves
their flinted brown-ness,
for the tepid marsh
of English Breakfast.
now they sell it back
as Ceylon tea. the bitter, insolvent irony
of you all telling us, now,
to get off your newly cordoned
country.now you sip,
turmeric lattes, and lavish me
with ayurvedic miracles, hand high to your sequined bindi,
lisping off sideways, along the sweat of your ice tipped brow,
the almond magic
you weave over title deeds, each bastard dish,
each buttered chicken, a monumental, imperialist tragedy,
took our jewels, our ancient medicine, our spiced teas –its appreciation, not appropriation, always so sensitive,
always with the race card ready, from the pocket of tight-lipped black jeans
don’t you want to be celebrated for who you are?leave the race card locked tight away in that back pocket, otherwise,
that belt gets tighter and tighter, do not speak a history,
they do not believe.the vice around
my coconut head, shavings white, underneath
the crusted brown husk.vinyasa taught, woke-fully, in high ceilinged
halls, bone linen drapery, for seventy
an hour, in the whitewall innards of the North, the ivory limbs all seasoned
in exotic oils, seeping through the artisanal cavities
even artisanal, marked up sourdough loaves
is still white bread,
with all its empty calories.
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones