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The Fair Queen of the Stable
Participative Inquiry into Systemic Corruption by Sophia Montgomery (sophia.montgomery@csu.edu.au)
March 2023
Participative Inquiry into Systemic Corruption by Sophia Montgomery
My project uses participative inquiry incorporating the technique of poetic interpretation to understand and represent the veiled essence of systemic corruption, using two Royal Commissions for my case studies. In this poem, I create an allegory to unravel the forces behind a bank’s treatment of business owners in the name of Financial Stability.
A participatory worldview sees that order and energy are complimentary opposites from which the infinite and transformative arises. But in a materialistic worldview, order is sovereign, and energy is demonised. The regime of order, whose personification in my poem is the ironically named ‘Fair Queen’, pretends that its finite constructions – financial stability and fairness – are, and will provide, the infinite. But the denial of the infinite inevitably locks the system into a cycle of scarcity, causing the ‘Fair Queen’ to sacrifice others to keep herself stable.
“Get rid!”, they squeal
Hot collars as
Financial crisis rolls in.
We’ve taken you over!
Don’t like your kids!
The wolves knocking at our door!
The old father leaves
Sensible subjectivity .
The pantheon
Of prudence
Follows his ghost.
A new regime of ‘fair’
A howling step-aunt
And her collection of ghouls
Sit around the paper
That now serves
As cardinal hinge
Between heaven and hell.
How can we wrangle
To meet our objectives?
The Queen of Safe
Interrogates the Rex of Lex
Subjectivity our mode!
Clauses our weapon!
The stable our goal!
The shepherds
Watch their flocks.
But the stars muffled
The kings absent.
As the locks click
Into place,
The clause-wolves
Enjoy the torture
And blameless victory
The spoils already theirs.
The children scream
As their paper guardians flutter.
Regal experts march in.
Humiliating games
Set up to fail.
Fire sale.
Land grab.
Souls and hearts
Crushed
As the Queen of the Stable-Fair
Watches on.