How to start a revolution in Australia

 

Go to a place that you don’t know

Preferably in the other hemisphere

Go to the place that is unknown

To you

You don’t know the people there either

Simply come from a far

This might help

15 616 km in a straight line on a globe’s map is equivalent to what I call “far”

 

This is your baggage

A rich life history

A home

A very good education

Job

Friends

Community

Dog

Leave it

 

Start to work

As a cleaner

A babysitter

A gardener

Dog walker

House sitter

Or whatever job you find a bit embarrassing

Taking into consideration your big baggage.

 

Pretend you know less than other people

Otherwise they won’t give you the job

Or they will feel bad in your company

And discover the beauty in it

Entering other people’s houses

Their intimacy

They open it for you

 

Be humble

Have your eyes wide open

Listen more than talk

Work with your hands

Work with your body

By biking everyday back and forth

Approximately 17 km

Everyday

6 in the morning

up hill, down hill

Up hill, down hill

It’s not Amsterdam you fool

Hampton Road, Dendy Street, Jasper Road,

Hampton, Brighton, Sandringham

They say wealthy people live here

Wealthy people only bike on Sundays when the weather is nice

Probably that’s why they didn’t create bike roads there, here

Big cars, big roads, big houses

I’d better ride on South Road’s footpath

Don’t want to die under the wheels of some family car full of loud kids

Being dropped off at school

Everyday is the same

Same families, same cars, same houses, same schools, uniforms, food, meat, tvs, gardens, clothes, wives, husbands, marriage, heterosexual,

When they ask you “how are you today?”

You always answer “very good”

But inside you shout: I’m afraid, I’m tired, I feel fear, big fear, anxiety, loneliness, despair and anger

Anger with myself

Do you really want to hear these answers?

I hate to lie

 

This is what they call “a normal life”

I’ve never wanted to be a part of it

But I am now

I placed myself here

It’s not so bad

I know it from before

Because what is normal?

 

Eventually the last turn on Bluff Street

Up hill

Again

Damn it

Finally the lights

stop

breathe, remember to breathe

breathe

breathe

breathe

breathe into your heart

open your heart

breathe

open your heart to everything and everyone

breathe

to yourself

breathe

 

then

after your work

everyday

for 1 hour

go to the other part of the city

to search for the chaos that you are used to

chaos of the ugly, disorganized city,

it’s so hard to find it here

 

observe people

observe homeless people, insane people

there are so many of them here

Is this postcolonial trauma exposed, passing through these sensitive people?

I can feel Aboriginal people

Even though I have not seen one here

 

go to trashy places

observe the chaotic performance which goes on

in the streets

this is so familiar to you

makes you feel more at home

 

put your ego a side

do as much as you can out of your comfort zone

be vulnerable

go into unknown

swim in the freezing ocean

 

when it’s the rush time of your revolution

you might discover your most precious gold nugget

there were so many newcomers arriving this land

many years ago

to search for big gold nuggets

to search for their dreams

they were obsessed with that

thousands of men from Europe, from the United States, from Asia,

strong and persistent men

who had their big dream and a goal in front of their eyes

to find the biggest gold nugget in the land of Australia

and it’s you who have found it

years after them

or frankly

your gold nugget might have been their creation

but that doesn’t matter

 

love

fall in love

fall in impossible love

fall in love with

fall in love with a queer

 

the gold nugget you have discovered here, your baby, your friend, your love

but it is not yours

You don’t want to own it

You don’t own any baggage now

You don’t want to own anyone

You don’t want to own anyone

I don’t want to own anyone

As no one owns me

 

shine baby when I leave

I will keep your beauty that you shared with me

In my bones, deep in my bones

I’m a mountain, you’re the ocean

You want to die from freezing in the mountains

I want to die from jumping into the deep wild ocean

funny coincidence, isn’t it?

I said “we are two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after years”

Is it really true?

I don’t know

 

But to keep the revolution going

You have to forget

Forget who you are

Who you were

Even who you are becoming

now

really

who am I really here?

 

I’m a woman,

I’m a physical worker,

I’m European with a funny Polish accent,

I’m a professional cleaner

I’m a professional disaster

I’m single,

I’m queer,

I’m gay,

I’m straight,

I’m a punk,

I’m a junk,

I’m a waste,

I’m a traveller,

I am an anthropologist

I’m an artist,

I’m a performer

I’m a dancer,

I’m a choreographer,

I’m a feminist,

I’m an adult,

I’m a child,

I’m a fool,

I’m pathetic,

I’m ordinary and extraordinary,

I’m a drama queen

I’m a drag queen

I’m a nerd

I’m an introvert and extrovert at the same time

I’m Gemini

I’m a diamond

I’m a shaman

I’m a jellyfish

I’m a whale

I’m a star

I’m a deer

I’m a mountain, you’re the ocean

The ocean and the star

 

I’m a soul

I’m spiritual

I’m practical

I’m a challenge

I’m the biggest challenge to myself

I’m sad

I’m happy

I’m scared

I’m here

I’m there

I am and I am not

I am and I am not

I am and I am not

I am and I am not

 

Jestem I nie jestem

Jestem I nie jestem

Jestem I nie jestem

Jestem I nie jestem

Jestem I nie jestem

 

I’m words, I’m sounds, I’m whatever you want me to be, I’m what you hear, I’m what you imagine me to be, I’m everything you can’t imagine me to be

 

I’m no one and everyone

I’m nothing and everything

Everything you want me to be

Everything that you see

 

I’m a body

I’m this body

This body with unequal breasts and dark spots that represent my life dramas

I have this body

I own this body

I’ve always wanted to control this body

But I can’t any more

I let go

I don’t want to control anymore

My body is not my private space

my body is public space

does private space exist without public space?

private is acknowledged by public

or was that the other way around?

my body is political

it has always been

not only my body

every body is political

 

I lose control

I lose control when I expose myself

Then I’m able to share some intimacy, vulnerability

Isn’t it the main reason we all came here today?

To share some intimacy, through words and presence

And bodies

And dreams

Dreams, as the old Gold Rush pioneers had

We are here to share some intimacy in order not to feel so lonely,

We are here to encounter the other

as the anthropologists say

The Other

Aboriginal, means those who were here from the beginning

People who know and remember the Dreamtime

We forgot this

Hopefully poetry will bring us there

I guess all of you were in this land since the beginning of my stay

Are you the aboriginals that I encountered here?

In this country

 

In this country

My body has changed

They say that the revolution brings a change

Is it me who brings the revolution to my body?

Or is the body that brings the revolution to me?

Who am I then? Am I my mind?

Not really

I know it already

that it’s one

I’m one

I’m a body and a mind

United during a ritual

Ritual of my life

Ritual of my art

This is a ritual

My revolution is the ritual