The Helm of Ned Kelly

like a fist clutching bread just to hoard and withhold like the grain that they locked in the silo

we'll be eating soup of stone til what we grow is what we own,

but we won't steal from the land what's freely given

tear up the deeds to the land, throw the debts into the furnace,

debts to god to the banks and to the landlord

don your armor don your helm, which was forged from an old plows blade

train your horses round and aim your guns at Sydney

I was born from a seed that was swallowed by a mad woman

from the lips and the tongue of ceridwen

I had took just a taste that had splashed up from the black kettle

in the waves neither drowned nor aged a day

down their lying in the brush was one bloody tethered horse,

and one detective in the service of the crown

even theough we're just one pistol against an army of policemen

I insist that we are many and they are few

It was on Van Dieman's land where your father came in transport

chained like cattle to the deck of a ship

held hostage in a word, stolen from the shores of erin

south australia bound in bondage of the queen's men