Patrick McCauley: Without the Use of Your Hands

Without the Use of Your Hands

(In Ireland, the English Lords outlawed the Celtic language and made the citizens dance without the use of their hands—a bodily discipline imposed to avoid assassinations by Irish patriots who refused to speak in English locked in a cultural inheritance.)

Ned Kelly’s driving the Great Ocean Road

as fast as he can go

there’s a BBQ on Australia Day

and his frock is getting strange.

Dance;

without the use of your hands.

Dance with only your legs

and your head,

your arms held straight at your sides.

Dream of your people and the words

they remember

dream in the colors of your childhood;

the trees and the sheds.

Dream in the color of

the voice of your mother.

Do not celebrate invasion day,

its standing on the cracks.

Change the date and do not speak

out loud,

whisper the name

of your oldest ancestor

and hide from the men

in the street.

Dare not speak the racial fetish

that courses through your blood,

its alcohol that makes you white

You want to be civilized.

Flags are not allowed;

its a grog free day

and we would prefer that smokers died

and that you dance … silently

without the use of your hands.

Do not sing too loudly

because those who celebrate

are more than those who capitulate.

Be happy quietly, silently, secretly,

without the use of your hands.

Patrick McCauley