'Coal,' Said The PM

Location

Australia

Coal

The PM said

Is how we in Australia run.

How we make money

Get on our feet.

Coal

Said the PM

Is what we need.

But Mr PM

What about the day

When you wake up

And they tell you it's over.

Mr PM

One day you will get out of bed

And turn on the television

And Australia will be out.

Out of coal.

And that day

The day when the land beneath our feet is bare

When the mines have been searched countless times

And the forests are a pit of

Tree trunks

Leaves

Debris

And no coal.

That will be the day

That you get out of bed

And you say

Australia

We're out.

And you will say

Australia

It's over.

The money is over

The economy is over

The coal is over.

And Mr PM

The forests will have been dug up in search of the very last coal.

And Mr PM

You're right.

It will be over.

The thing that ran us

The thing that we ran for

Will be over.

And we'll slow

To a jog

And then a walk.

And before you know it,

Mr PM

We'll be crawling

Because our feet are too blistered to stand anymore.

And then

We'll be stopped

Because the dug up land

Beneath our knees

Bare of coal

And bare of life

Will make our knee caps bleed.

So Mr PM

Maybe we do run on coal.

Mr PM

Maybe we will be walking

Crawling

Limp

Without it.

But Mr PM

You can change that.

While we are still on our feet

And beneath the forests are lands of fuel

Mr PM

Find us a solution
A replacement

So that when the day comes

That we stop running

That the forests are gone

That the economy is drowning

And we are searching on our hands and knees for the sun

You can provide the sun

So that we

Can run

Will run

Are running.

Coal might fuel the world

But Mr PM

It will not fuel Australia.

 

NOTE: I am not against the former PM of Australia, I promise! This is not in any way political, just something that I felt inclined to write about.

 

This poem is about: 
My country

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