MICKIE DEE

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.         

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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

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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

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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)

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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.

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