AKA Michael Dunne
1. A Duet of Warmth and Brightness Emerging From Dark Clouds
2. For Survival Day (NOT UNDERSTANDING) AWELYE
3. Bob of the Eels
4. DEMOCRACY QUARTET (PART 1)
5. DEMOCRACY (PART 2)
1. A duet of warmth and brightness emerging from dark clouds
by Mickie Dee
Part 1
Written May 1994
after a painting by indigenous artist, Judy Watson, at flash pictures, in Geelong
HEARTLAND
A rock glows
an ember of the land
Warmth
Light amongst the shadows
A strong smell
of desert country
Movement
Life among the history
A steady beat
of the heartland
Soul
Glows among the mystery
A rock, an ember,
the heart of the land
glows like a red sun
through dark storm clouds.
Adapted from July 1994,
original written Shelly Beach, East Ballina
after James Gleeson’s ‘The Invention of Frottage’
HEART OF THE WHIRLYWIND
(In Hope …)
A whirlywind inside a shell
a million words,
no-one to tell
We’ll meet by chance
And whirl around
In a timely dance
Around we’ll go with hands on heart
No one place
to end or start
With a lump in throat
Words will float
When we sing a note
in a whimsical boat,
with a prayer that ties
to a hope that tries
to orchestrate
to not be late.
And no-one here nor no-one there
will ever see nor ever care
the emptiness of a lonely dare
to chase dark clouds away from where
hearts run free into the air.
So if you see me, help me stand;
in whirlywinds please hold my hand.
“And time can finely orchestrate,
the prayers it ties to hopes too late.”
Around again no end or start
just you and me in a whirling heart.
2. For Survival Day (NOT UNDERSTANDING) AWELYE
With acknowledgement of First Nation people and a warning that there is the name below of a person no longer living.
This was read on 3MGB for Survival Day in 2023, having been written in the mid 90s while viewing Emily Kame Kngwarreye and other indigenous artists. Ironically, while writing about not understanding Australia’s indigenous (First Nation) culture, I recall using the title as though it referred generally to indigenous art, or at least the art of women. 3 decades later I learn that I did not even understand the term. It is possible that the painting was untitled and that the use of Awelye was as a description rather than a name given by Emily. Ironic too that I have since learned that dots became used in permanent art only 25 years or so before the poem was written, and even more so because dots have been used in place of things that should remain secret, not for me to ever know. And so the title of the poem itself, confirms the message of the title.
For Survival Day
(NOT UNDERSTANDING) AWELYE
I know what they look like and well they may be
for I have no dreaming, only what I can see.
You’ve always lived around me (amid racism frowns)
and given names to our creatures and names to our towns.
I have known of your weapons and known of your looks
but I’ve been kept far from you and heard you mostly in books.
I learned all the work I was given at school
but you have your dreaming and I feel the fool.
I learned how to get all that I need.
While you learned your culture, I learned of greed.
Even now that I know much more who you are
I gaze at your art and the gap still seems far.
What are the dots? What are they for?
I look at your work and I want to know more.
Your paints set free stories that you hold in your hand.
Are the dots children? Or are they just sand?
I belong here, I was born in this land
but I’ve still much to learn, much still to understand.
T. M. DUNNE
3. Bob of the Eels
Caramel-peach coloured rocks, past which Bob was being swept, made the racing river bend. As Bobby tried to gain a foothold, soft beds of sand gave way beneath the curling, flowing weight of a swollen high tide lagoon, and beneath his narrow bony feet. Rolling, rolling to the sea where white frothy layers took their turns at the stalling of the progress of the man within the stream. The waters spread and crossed a beach, wide, white and wild, spread and crossed and shallowed thin, where grains of sand grazed his skin. The shadow of a landing pelican passed overhead.
He sat up. He had his head at last, freedom but a few strides away; and yet he did not move.
In the shallows where the foam, of salty sea-dog breath, drank the fresher brackish tannin of the falling brook, he sat and watched and felt the melding.
Water finds it ways, vapour by vapour, drop by drop, trickle by trickle and splash by splash, from the grey, green blue seas, into the cloudy sphere; and down and down and down again in its fervent cycle, through Genoa Peak’s granite tors, and down the ashen black and green and ferny gullies, into hidden aquifers and through the forest floor; down the Betka round and round, back home again, again again, and into the sky some more. A man finds his way, stroke by stroke, ankle by ankle through the journey’s way, till there amid the swirls and twirls, there between the tannin and froth, there between the rocks and the sea, the caramel-peach rockery, all brown and purple, and the deep grey green blue sea, there beneath the summer skies, he came to understand. Eels swam on undisturbed and a kangaroo grazed on a bank above the rocks.
A pelican watched.
by Spake Thusly
4. DEMOCRACY QUARTET (PART 1)
by Mickie Dee
Optimism, from its mildest hopes to its wildest dreams, and pessimism, from its mildest shudder to its infernal depths, are divided only by the thinnest of lines – and within that line lies reality. And the reality of what we know as life, love, evolution, democracy, science and peace find themselves in throes with all existence in that existential squeeze.
Now the vox popoli has wrestled decency from the greedy in our federal election, some offerings on democracy. With its highest ideals, and all the sabotage it has endured, democracy finds its only home within that narrow little gap.
As in the song ‘The Real Thing’: men (add other genders to suit) will always say, I HAVE THE POWER. Possibly Andy Warhol would agree, as long as there is art in there, so, with a smiling nod to the ghost of Gough, and with a little help from Paul Simon:
LIES, ART and ANDY
In the ad break bows a fork-tongue,
a mouther by his trade;
sided by a banana
and 15 lies of fame.
Lie – La – Lie
Lie – La – Lie Lie Lie Lie – La – Lie
An interview with Andy,
and the world’s a shrinking stage:
a voyeuristic tinker,
is the ‘common man’ of our age.
Art d’art
Art d’art art art Art d’art
A family home to Biloela
No more a political toy
And change our constitution
Come on Aussie – Oi Oi Oi
Close the gap
Close the gap gap gap, Close the gap
LOST DEMOCRACY
(inspired by Milan Kundera and Václav Havel)
There in the middle
the middle of the dark
Before the roots of history
could make a single mark
Groped a lost democracy
in search of an identity
Or any kind philosophy
in its eternal empty park
Then time descended on us all
its dawning loud and stark
while photons gathered in the fall
with a muon and a quark
And with these three was born a world
that filled with forests, filled with trees
filled with roots and filled with leaves
but without the simple-est of souls
to quietly give a fark
And if you listen to the forest
and listen carefully
Sometimes you’ll hear the songs
of lost democracy:
Two leaves fallen, one root up…
It is democracy, do hark!
It has no roots into the ground
It’s just floating in the dark.
STAND AS ONE
| The trains keep running on down the track The flames keep leaping up behind your back. and the water runs trickling and the people keep running and the leader shouts loud warnings of distress | And another show starts to end and another day turns the bend and another dawning proud mornings to caress So all of us can carry on so all of us can stand as one and live in years halcyon until the next regress |
This one is actually about a dolphin. Maybe when democracy is on song, we can imagine a metaphor. Or not. Hope you enjoy the dolphin show!
DANCE OF THE DOLPHIN
A grey dolphin slips
through the deep light,
a soft ghost through water
like a shadow through night.
Smooth firm and shining
the dolphin’s form smiles,
like a mobile suspended
in the morning sun bright
and sprays silver pleats
in a shimmering light.
A small submarine
graceful in motion.
A periscope fin
through curtains of ocean.
Like a harmony floating
in a symphony strong,
the dance of the dolphin
is an indelible song.
Balanced by power
in the sway of a cradle
with the clicks and the squeals
of a soft sonar sound.
A pale freckled belly
and wide friendly eyes,
first dive and then soar
as the sea comes alive.
Into the air
leaps a long grey flier,
through the high path
of a make-believe rainbow
followed by droplets
applauding the show.
Mickie Dee
(PS The dolphins get my vote)
DEMOCRACY QUARTET (PART 2)
Following from part one last week, with reality existing in the narrow space between optimism and pessimism, some further thoughts.
Perhaps these poems – about a train, a dolphin and marriage, including the throwing of the garter – contain some metaphors for our realities, including bits of democracy.
Interesting to think of couples, married or not, where equality demands consensus as there are only two votes! Dolphins perhaps act on instinct or follow the leader, rather than taking a show of fins. Garters fly, and land, somewhere between randomly and mischievously!
STAND AS ONE
The trains
keep running on down the tracks
The flames
keep leaping up behind your backs.
and the water runs trickling
and the people keep running
and the leader shouts loud
warnings of distress
And another show starts to end
and another day turns the bend
and another dawning proud
mornings to caress
So all of us can carry on
so all of us can stand as one
and live in years halcyon
until the next regress
when we must stand as one
This one was written about a dolphin, so many of them surfing the point recently. Maybe when democracy is on song, we can imagine a metaphor. Or not. Hope you enjoy the show!
DANCE OF THE DOLPHIN
A grey dolphin slips
through the deep light,
a soft ghost through water
like a shadow through night.
Smooth firm and shining
the dolphin’s form smiles,
like a mobile suspended
in the morning sun bright
and sprays silver pleats
in a shimmering light.
A small submarine
graceful in motion.
A periscope fin
through curtains of ocean.
Like a harmony floating
in a symphony strong,
the dance of the dolphin
is an indelible song.
Balanced by power
in the sway of a cradle
with the clicks and the squeals
of a soft sonar sound.
A pale freckled belly
and wide friendly eyes,
first dives and then soars
as the sea comes alive.
Into the air
leaps a long grey flier,
through the high path
of a make-believe rainbow
followed by droplets
applauding the show.
Quartet plus …
After the plebiscite!
MAY THE GARTER FLY
Inspired by Madam Butterfly and Duncan’s pre-fire collection.
Let’s just hold a plebiscite
In case a little truth appears.
Blue-blood again fails democ-racy
and all same-sex emotion.
Afraid of a rainbow horizon,
we don’t wish
to fix up this wrong’
Growing bigger each second
gay pride in my direction.
L G B T Que-er
My homophob-ia
their weddings I fe-ar
… nothing to che-er
The people had their say
this grows bigger by day
all persons are links in a chain
that climbed their mount-ain
Chiming wedding bells
The garter flies? Who will throw it?
Chiming “garter-fly, garter-fly”
As I hide from them.
For which one will throw it
Who will call?
Who will call ‘blossom of sweetness’,
till the end of all time?
Chiming blossom of sweetness
till the end of all time.