Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Paul Collis

Stories, whispery voice
Mooda-Gutta!
Warning sign, stampede horse.
Mooda-Gutta!
Water spout ... sounds like petrol on fire –
Don’t cross there! Mooda-Gutta
Don’t say it aloud,
Whisper ‘Mooda-Gutta’.

Paul Collis

...

(For my sister, Joanne)

Slowly the days pass.
Buses, cars, bikes
all roll away, away.
She is gone, down a shady street in shiny shoes.
Way above, vapour trails burn the sky
and way below, scars burn the land.
She screams, but I can’t hear.
In another street, the new suits,
suit themselves, and colours burn red and gold.
Noisy bastards. Shu ...

(for Satendra)

 

What happened to me

What did I do to deserve that?

I don’t want to be old person.

I’m buggered now, poor fulla me, done, old, like dust.

I should go to doctor, and ask him a question.

He said, ‘Only thing worse than getting old, is not.’
Wise man, Doctor. He’s like light. His eyes know. They see into me ...

Yo!

Whitefullas got no cult-charr!
– Only me
With my arm fulla tatts, up my sleeve.

– Only Us Mob!
Only us
Got cult-charr.

Don’t tell me! I lived it, man. Us bruvas, we live it –
Everyday man. We fuken live it.
Blak and Proud. Deadly, un’a?

Always was
Always will be
ABORIGINAL LAND.

Colonisation i ...

I’d become …
just a public pain.
Did I make you, just a little
… sick?
Make me your vampire, then –
your time.
Take my neck.
Dig deep with kisses.
Let’s feel the swirl of blood.
A country boy on Country is a power difference-making ...
Spirit flying time with eagles – where everything’s clear.
I’ll never be clear.
Not i ...

A Barkindji man, born by the Darling River in Bourke, far north-west New South Wales, Paul is an emerging writer and poet, who works at the University of Canberra, teaching creative writing. Paul holds a PhD in cultural theory and creative writing. Dancing Home, his first novel, won the national 2016 ...

... (read more)

Dancing Home opens in forthright fashion. The author, Paul Collis, urges readers to ‘[t]ake sides. Be involved in the ideas I’ve written into this book.’ The novel offers an uncompromising examination of some of the injustices faced by Indigenous Australians. The plot focuses on three men – Blackie, Rips, and Carlos – who have embarked on a ...

... (read more)