No, thank you, I don’t want another glass of your fancy shiraz While you lecture me on climate change And the horrors of plastic bags And cotton buds. I don’t really think your worm farm Proves much. And your aboriginal art collection Is a living piece of voodoo. Yes, it’s all so very worrying … More On trying to come home…
My father died in the summer of 1984. At least, it was some time around then. There was no funeral. No grave. It was like nobody really noticed. My brother and I went to school that day, and the day after. Our father died on a rainy night in Sydney, and took his own body, … More Daddy’s Little Secret
‘I’ve got work to do,’ he says. ‘Me and the other writers and song makers. We’ve got to clean up the story, get back to the land, let the dark stories in so we can pass on a better future to our grandchildren. If you want to say it’s too late, that the whole place is going to hell, well, tell that to your kids and see how it feels.’ … More An Absence of Stars – the Dark Art of telling Australia’s True Story.
This is on behalf of the fat kids, the black ones, the weak ones, the women, the boys who didn’t like rugby, the girls who weren’t pretty enough. It’s for the young men hazed as apprentices, the workers bullied by bosses and rivals, trapped by their mortgages and fear. It is for everybody who is … More Ordinary acts of every day violence ~ a prayer for the bullied.
Aussie Tsunami surfer Ross Clarke Jones is a man who rides waves that eat surfers. He tells Jade Richardson why. It was standing on its haunches, biting at the sky. A swelling, growling wall of water; a snarling slice of sea. The biggest wave ever ridden; a freak wall of liquid thunder churned out by El Nino … More The Devil Inside
Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia: Something very odd is coming over Dwain Weston. Staring over an endless grey chasm at Bridle Veil Falls, he makes out scars where the earth has been eaten away by sky. Cliffs, valleys and waterfalls. Drops of water scream into the abyss and slow-motion cloud spins through the valley. Weston’s perceptions are … More Totally Addicted to BASE
Today I met a rich man. He was packing up his 4WD after a long weekend at the country house, over-looking the ocean, nextdoor. His face was heavy with several decades of Camembert and expensive Shiraz. He seemed embarrassed about his dog. He shook my hand as if he were going for a home run, … More Letter to a rich man at dusk.
Bob came to mow the lawn yesterday. I saw him creep through the side gate while I was sorting out my shell collection. He slunk in hunched and filthy. His sticky white legs poking out of saggy King Gees. Bandy ankles thrust into ratty Blunstones, raw with mud and ash and spit from years of grubby labour. … More Good Men, Hurting… a message from the Jasmine King
Gondwana’s prim bouquet of
lemon and honey, red earth and gum
is utterly disheveled
by this exotica
of hot pine, leather,
gunsmoke
and sweat. … More my America
What touched me most deeply was my discovery that this loss was a tragedy for both races. The grief and betrayal of the next century would be felt by black and white alike, forced into a conflict that was not of their making. … More Indiana Jones breaks the Great Aussie Silence – the lost story of peace between the races.
Passionfruitcowgirl 