Kennethland
by Brett Dionysius
This is all his now. The front row’s four desks,
habitually rearranged like a swastika throughout
history. They have been annexed for the founding
of Kennethland. He has a pilgrim’s first thrill on
sighting landfall. His anxiety rises from his head
like a tall black hat. Inside its boundaries he raises
a flag of outlandish design legitimising his mind’s
false invasion. He blames others for his border
intrusions. His actions are a grand conspiracy,
dressing up conformity’s corpse in irrationality’s
dun-coloured uniform & dumping it over his
checkpoint. He is fluent in visual propaganda.
He shoots a history of his new world order
in grainy super eight. The assault was sudden.
He keeps a guarded airspace over his meticulous
kingdom. He has measured every perimeter’s inch.
He keeps equal distances apart. There is no other
landscape like this, so worth protecting. He writes
his inaugural constitution in red crayon pictures.
His weapons are literal, his thoughts fire rapidly
like a gun-mounted camera. They hurt. Any breach
to his sovereignty is dealt with fiercely. His left fist
hangs in the air like a bulbous-headed drone. His
neck is rigid undercarriage when he makes a decision.
He draws computer game screenshots to prophesise
what exactly will happen. Like a robot, he doesn’t mix
his words, but acts by instruction. Missile-pens launch
from his fingers’ slim silos buried in the cornfields
of his jean pockets & stab at their flesh’s no fly zone.
He is steeped in Armageddon’s instantaneous results.
This land is lost. He has already begun to print his own
currency. The denominations don’t make sense, but
they are as nostalgic as soil & well worth collecting.
He doesn’t want them to open his nation’s tidy box.
There are some inner workings they don’t get to see.
He craves the sensation of a cattle crush pinning him,
but without the iron touch. He patrols. Outside his wire
enclosure everyone has been reclassified as an enemy
combatant. He keeps just one true prisoner of war.
He has no plans to exchange him for the present.
B. R. Dionysius was founding Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival. His poetry has been widely published in literary journals, anthologies, newspapers and online. His eighth poetry collection Weranga will be released in 2013. He lives in Ipswich, Queensland where he runs, watches birds, teaches English and writes sonnets.