Claytons: the drink you have when you’re not having a drink.
A brand for the fake, the substitute, the stand-in –
Australia’s own way of pretending,
performing the ritual of wanting it real
while keeping it safely unreal.
This is the Claytons country –
the society you have when you’re not having a real one.
Claytons welcome:
smile for the cameras,
hide the gates,
we’re “open” if you match the picture.
Claytons equality:
We say “fair go,”
but the dice are loaded –
your ticket stamped by genes, accents,
postcodes, and luck.
Claytons anti-racism:
Reconciliation on T-shirts,
acknowledgement in the margins,
while the truth rots in cells and desert towns,
locked out from memory,
locked inside headlines for one news cycle.
Claytons activism:
Tweet, hashtag, stand in the street –
but make sure it doesn’t mess with the mortgage
or the Saturday brunch.
Claytons justice:
Reports, royal commissions, royal excuses.
Abuse is historical,
complicity annual,
and real change is always in “the next government.”
Now we buy Claytons compassion for Gaza,
Palestine in our bios,
but check the fine print:
policy is propped on Zionism,
and the rules are different depending on
whose blood is trending.
We’re Claytons allies,
Claytons multicultural,
Claytons accountable –
always talking,
never listening,
forever rehearsing the show
of the country we’ll never actually become.
So we cheers at the pub,
raise a Claytons to “progress,”
sip the promise of what’s not really there,
and toast to the comfort of never having
the real thing at all.
