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 ...
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