Dear ■N■■hew Ned,
Thought it would rain
I hope you get this
Been reading for you. Not books or words, no academy, just the swamp of my temporary surroundings. A southern theory in northern lands, laced with birch and pine, a great spotted bird and golden leaves. Falling. Through another realm just to reach you. I thought, maybe, if dhundhu danced for you. Things might change.
Can’t keep going around like this. Parading about town with our head in a bucket, guns blazing. Won’t stop them criticising, we’re still going to get shot down y’know. Besides, it looks mighty stupid. Been thinking of you lots, how you hold such esteem, such a loose cannon. Makes me wonder. What if I danced for you? Like dhundhu. Like the swan. What would happen?
Would everybody stop carrying on like we exist on an island, only an island? Would we still be a sensation, not a place? It’s not really that either, I mean, sure it’ll float. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Doesn’t mean we’re free from context. Seriously though, we can’t keep going around like this.
I really thought it might rain. But not rubber bullets and yellow vests, not a meteor shower, not flakes of ash. Embers from the sky. But galing, falling water, flowing streams, rising tides.
We could go swimming don’t you think? Let off some steam, get outa that rusty old suit. Still, I’m devoured by dehydration. As if some kind of madness, no moisture, breathing through smoke, and the air is not the same. Just want to know how to help, just thought maybe if I dance for you.
Like dhundhu.
Like the swan.
To give it water.
Hope it rains before I see you again. In another incommensurable con text
- Danger Magus
Dear B■■■her Brett,
Couldn’t sleep the other night, my mind was overrun with visions of your visit. And the urge to write you overwhelms me again. But these words won’t do. I know you won’t read them.
So I want to sing for you, babbirra. Maybe you’ll hear me, maybe you’ll listen. I just need to respond. It’s about forgiveness. Need to let go of your inappropriate gesture. So, what if I sing to you again, babbirra. Like we used to, remember? I hope you remember.
Tried to teach you burrimal, to fly. That night half a century ago. When you got all inspired and went marragir by the caves while dinnawan watched from above. Those marks you made. That mess you left.
Sang for you then too, but I’m not sure you were listening. Preoccupied with your own fingerprint and that mural. All cracked and dried up like blood on the rock. Scars of the enfant terrible. From cuts made by a wayward genius, an operation that nobody needed but you. Troubled artist.
You came with friends. Under that guise. Seeking solace. Raged through the night like a gigantic burning matchstick in an explosive haze. A lost masterpiece they say. Those marks you made. That mess you left.
I just wanted you to hear my songs. We could sing them together now. We’re all still here if you care to listen. Submerged in the floods for a while. But that doesn’t happen anymore. Galing, it’s all gone you see. No lost interior. Time passed. But still here.
And I can’t sleep again. Don’t really know what to do. But I keep seeing your face. As if you are still here. Still hear you thrashing about. Like those sounds you see in silhouettes, in the flock of a thousand yiribin. Keep thinking I’m hallucinating while histories repeat. But I’m just trying to understand. How you’ve done what you’ve done.
I just want to forgive. We could let it all go and move forward.
Just want to see you to fly. Like bilirr.
Just want to sing for you. Babbirra.
- Danger Magus
■■■■■■■■■■
Dear A■■t■y Drovxxs wife,
Heard you’ve been struggling to breathe a bit lately. Even with the aid of those masks. I feel for you. And it hurts. I can smell the smoke too. Stringybark turning inside out. We know it well: this Country is angry. And I’m part of it. So are you though. Which makes me wonder, maybe if I write you in the dirt, or in the sky. Might heal things. Shift perspectives. Something might change.
Keep trying to fight for you. We’re not kids anymore. Let’s sit down, have a good cry.
Keep trying to heal your past, your hardship. ‘Cos I want you to see what I see. I don’t expect you to understand, and I’m not asking you to change. But I am. And I know you can feel what I feel. It’s not fair, that's right. But we’re all part of it. Just growing tired of these reptilian and reactionary survival tactics. ‘Bout time the children learned a little more about this Country, for shame's sake’ – that’s what he said, right?
This isn’t the future you imagined I’m sure. Not for us four at least. Not in our lucky Country. Where you were always the boss. Had three rivers. Where the bush danced with yiribin and bilirr sung our name. Where dhuwaa & gugaa give strength and balance poison. Welcomed you home. Like the drover’s wife might do.
I know things are different now. All this smoke, this gulbi. This flaming watershed. We’re still battling your residue. Those traumas burdened and suppressed. Want you to know it’s not your fault. We don’t blame you. But we need to take action, now.
Wanna make change together. Gotta stop subscribing to that fake image.
Maybe if I write to you. Write your name in the dirt. Or in the sky. Or maybe, like mother used to. Might heal things. Bring you back, let you grow again. Set you free.
Woke up the other day with your hazy hands at my throat again. Eyes burning in clouds of delusion. Felt suffocated. Like havin’ a great big snake wrapped around ya neck. Panic consumed us all. Like baabay tangled up in the fence. Red skies. Running and running. And the roar of it. And gone again.
Seemed like these concepts, these memories, those thoughts of the past, about prized possession about enlightenment and success and the well to do, all just evaporated overnight.
Did something happen?
Did you hear them?
Listen.
I want you to know I wrote for you. In the dirt again.
Could hear your voice. Girlang.
Moving through the bush.
Can see us healing.
Missing you,
D■■■er Magus
Dear Minister,
Used to be a river
Used to flow but now I’m dry
Not because I recently took turn to sobriety
But, 39 years ago they took me away
Those filthy mutts
I know who youse are
Glencore’s Ulan
Yancoal’s Moolarben
and Peabody’s Wilpinjong
You don’t have to remind me
I know who I was named after
Some stinking old British politician
Henry fuckin’ Goulburn
Under-Secretary for the Colonial Office
Don’t think he ever even came to meet me
But it’s funny you see
Cos we don’t own our names
We don’t even choose ‘em
Names are borrowed
Names are gifted to you
You remember that other strange fella
His name was William Lawson
Him and his expedition
His mates Blaxland and Wentworth
Well they was just trying to impress
They was also just passing through
When they named me
Tourists y’see
Well they gone now
But the residue lingers
That vicious colonial project
Still digging us up to turn a profit
Still toiling in our wealth
Hijacking our bloodlines
Then telling everybody how to sing our songs
But they all outa tune
Them words mixed up
Just like the salinity levels downstream
They got my mate Hunter all confused,
Think’n they the ocean
Great big ships coming in and out
All day
All night
You can hear‘em
But you’s just not listenin’
Yeah, and so, they re-routed me
The Goulburn River Diversion
1981 to 2031
50 years
Then maybe they’ll think about it
Ending coal
That’s why I’m dry
And that’s why we all on fire
Guyang
In the long run
I’ll rehabilitate myself
These trees and reeds
They’ll grow back
My ecology will thrive again
And there’ll be no one around
No one to farm them hooved animals
My banks will be clean
And you’ll be gone
Wonder if that Henry fella
ever seen what a cow goes through
When there’s no water - yuyuwi
When a young calf dies
The mumma cow just stays there
cries and cries and cries
Just like she did under that bridge they built over me
There’s no telling how long for
It’s the kinda grief you wouldn't wanna imagine
Let alone cause
And they say we can’t live without coal
Well, we not doing much good with it
Maybe we better off leaving it the ground
And giving back my galing - water
So, I can go on singing my song
And stop draggin’ empty vessels down dry creek beds
This wasn’t really ever about drought
Buram-buram-bang
But this is stolen water
Yuyuwi, no water
And it didn’t start 1981
Started before they even named me Goulburn
Used to be the main tributary
For Hunter
From all the way up at the Drip
Wiradjuri Country
Down through Wonnarua
And out at Worimi
I miss my brother
I miss my sister
And our lost river pair
This not a negligible impact
These companies keep applying
They wanna discharge me as their wastewater
Not enough they already stole me
for washing dirty concentrates
to clean their $35 million
to reduce pollution
maybe we should just stop polluting
bila
and now it’s dry
And your leather boots keep crackin’
Only the skin on your face knows the time
But the bank of the river, your body
badha where you sit
While your eyes keep burning
And you, filling up with tears
As if it’s the only way
to bring back water
Used to be a river
■■■■■■■■■
Dale Collier is an artist, writer and experimental musician of Wiradjuri and Northern European heritage. His works involving the fusion of hyper-objects and global conditioning have recently been exhibited within the Art Gallery Of South Australia’s 2019 Ramsay Art Prize and the Parliament Of New South Wales 2018 King & Wood Malleson Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award.
In 2019 Dale was awarded the Windmill Trust Scholarship facilitated by the National Association for the Visual Arts, and commenced projects with Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery, Cementa Contemporary Art Festival and The Lock Up Contemporary Art Centre.
He is currently an artist in residence with the City of Melbourne at the Boyd Studios Community Centre, and previously undertook residency within the Bundanon Trust First Peoples Residency Program and the Arteles Centre for Creativity in Haukijärvi, Finland in 2019.
Dale lives and works upon the Sovereign Lands of the Awabakal, Worimi and Kulin Nations, where he pays deep respects and acknowledges the custodianship of Ancestors, Elders Community and Kin past, present and future.
Dear ■N■■hew Ned,
Thought it would rain
I hope you get this
Been reading for you. Not books or words, no academy, just the swamp of my temporary surroundings. A southern theory in northern lands, laced with birch and pine, a great spotted bird and golden leaves. Falling. Through another realm just to reach you. I thought, maybe, if dhundhu danced for you. Things might change.
Can’t keep going around like this. Parading about town with our head in a bucket, guns blazing. Won’t stop them criticising, we’re still going to get shot down y’know. Besides, it looks mighty stupid. Been thinking of you lots, how you hold such esteem, such a loose cannon. Makes me wonder. What if I danced for you? Like dhundhu. Like the swan. What would happen?
Would everybody stop carrying on like we exist on an island, only an island? Would we still be a sensation, not a place? It’s not really that either, I mean, sure it’ll float. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Doesn’t mean we’re free from context. Seriously though, we can’t keep going around like this.
I really thought it might rain. But not rubber bullets and yellow vests, not a meteor shower, not flakes of ash. Embers from the sky. But galing, falling water, flowing streams, rising tides.
We could go swimming don’t you think? Let off some steam, get outa that rusty old suit. Still, I’m devoured by dehydration. As if some kind of madness, no moisture, breathing through smoke, and the air is not the same. Just want to know how to help, just thought maybe if I dance for you.
Like dhundhu.
Like the swan.
To give it water.
Hope it rains before I see you again. In another incommensurable con text
- Danger Magus
Dear B■■■her Brett,
Couldn’t sleep the other night, my mind was overrun with visions of your visit. And the urge to write you overwhelms me again. But these words won’t do. I know you won’t read them.
So I want to sing for you, babbirra. Maybe you’ll hear me, maybe you’ll listen. I just need to respond. It’s about forgiveness. Need to let go of your inappropriate gesture. So, what if I sing to you again, babbirra. Like we used to, remember? I hope you remember.
Tried to teach you burrimal, to fly. That night half a century ago. When you got all inspired and went marragir by the caves while dinnawan watched from above. Those marks you made. That mess you left.
Sang for you then too, but I’m not sure you were listening. Preoccupied with your own fingerprint and that mural. All cracked and dried up like blood on the rock. Scars of the enfant terrible. From cuts made by a wayward genius, an operation that nobody needed but you. Troubled artist.
You came with friends. Under that guise. Seeking solace. Raged through the night like a gigantic burning matchstick in an explosive haze. A lost masterpiece they say. Those marks you made. That mess you left.
I just wanted you to hear my songs. We could sing them together now. We’re all still here if you care to listen. Submerged in the floods for a while. But that doesn’t happen anymore. Galing, it’s all gone you see. No lost interior. Time passed. But still here.
And I can’t sleep again. Don’t really know what to do. But I keep seeing your face. As if you are still here. Still hear you thrashing about. Like those sounds you see in silhouettes, in the flock of a thousand yiribin. Keep thinking I’m hallucinating while histories repeat. But I’m just trying to understand. How you’ve done what you’ve done.
I just want to forgive. We could let it all go and move forward.
Just want to see you to fly. Like bilirr.
Just want to sing for you. Babbirra.
- Danger Magus
■■■■■■■■■■
Dear A■■t■y Drovxxs wife,
Heard you’ve been struggling to breathe a bit lately. Even with the aid of those masks. I feel for you. And it hurts. I can smell the smoke too. Stringybark turning inside out. We know it well: this Country is angry. And I’m part of it. So are you though. Which makes me wonder, maybe if I write you in the dirt, or in the sky. Might heal things. Shift perspectives. Something might change.
Keep trying to fight for you. We’re not kids anymore. Let’s sit down, have a good cry.
Keep trying to heal your past, your hardship. ‘Cos I want you to see what I see. I don’t expect you to understand, and I’m not asking you to change. But I am. And I know you can feel what I feel. It’s not fair, that's right. But we’re all part of it. Just growing tired of these reptilian and reactionary survival tactics. ‘Bout time the children learned a little more about this Country, for shame's sake’ – that’s what he said, right?
This isn’t the future you imagined I’m sure. Not for us four at least. Not in our lucky Country. Where you were always the boss. Had three rivers. Where the bush danced with yiribin and bilirr sung our name. Where dhuwaa & gugaa give strength and balance poison. Welcomed you home. Like the drover’s wife might do.
I know things are different now. All this smoke, this gulbi. This flaming watershed. We’re still battling your residue. Those traumas burdened and suppressed. Want you to know it’s not your fault. We don’t blame you. But we need to take action, now.
Wanna make change together. Gotta stop subscribing to that fake image.
Maybe if I write to you. Write your name in the dirt. Or in the sky. Or maybe, like mother used to. Might heal things. Bring you back, let you grow again. Set you free.
Woke up the other day with your hazy hands at my throat again. Eyes burning in clouds of delusion. Felt suffocated. Like havin’ a great big snake wrapped around ya neck. Panic consumed us all. Like baabay tangled up in the fence. Red skies. Running and running. And the roar of it. And gone again.
Seemed like these concepts, these memories, those thoughts of the past, about prized possession about enlightenment and success and the well to do, all just evaporated overnight.
Did something happen?
Did you hear them?
Listen.
I want you to know I wrote for you. In the dirt again.
Could hear your voice. Girlang.
Moving through the bush.
Can see us healing.
Missing you,
D■■■er Magus
Dear Minister,
Used to be a river
Used to flow but now I’m dry
Not because I recently took turn to sobriety
But, 39 years ago they took me away
Those filthy mutts
I know who youse are
Glencore’s Ulan
Yancoal’s Moolarben
and Peabody’s Wilpinjong
You don’t have to remind me
I know who I was named after
Some stinking old British politician
Henry fuckin’ Goulburn
Under-Secretary for the Colonial Office
Don’t think he ever even came to meet me
But it’s funny you see
Cos we don’t own our names
We don’t even choose ‘em
Names are borrowed
Names are gifted to you
You remember that other strange fella
His name was William Lawson
Him and his expedition
His mates Blaxland and Wentworth
Well they was just trying to impress
They was also just passing through
When they named me
Tourists y’see
Well they gone now
But the residue lingers
That vicious colonial project
Still digging us up to turn a profit
Still toiling in our wealth
Hijacking our bloodlines
Then telling everybody how to sing our songs
But they all outa tune
Them words mixed up
Just like the salinity levels downstream
They got my mate Hunter all confused,
Think’n they the ocean
Great big ships coming in and out
All day
All night
You can hear‘em
But you’s just not listenin’
Yeah, and so, they re-routed me
The Goulburn River Diversion
1981 to 2031
50 years
Then maybe they’ll think about it
Ending coal
That’s why I’m dry
And that’s why we all on fire
Guyang
In the long run
I’ll rehabilitate myself
These trees and reeds
They’ll grow back
My ecology will thrive again
And there’ll be no one around
No one to farm them hooved animals
My banks will be clean
And you’ll be gone
Wonder if that Henry fella
ever seen what a cow goes through
When there’s no water - yuyuwi
When a young calf dies
The mumma cow just stays there
cries and cries and cries
Just like she did under that bridge they built over me
There’s no telling how long for
It’s the kinda grief you wouldn't wanna imagine
Let alone cause
And they say we can’t live without coal
Well, we not doing much good with it
Maybe we better off leaving it the ground
And giving back my galing - water
So, I can go on singing my song
And stop draggin’ empty vessels down dry creek beds
This wasn’t really ever about drought
Buram-buram-bang
But this is stolen water
Yuyuwi, no water
And it didn’t start 1981
Started before they even named me Goulburn
Used to be the main tributary
For Hunter
From all the way up at the Drip
Wiradjuri Country
Down through Wonnarua
And out at Worimi
I miss my brother
I miss my sister
And our lost river pair
This not a negligible impact
These companies keep applying
They wanna discharge me as their wastewater
Not enough they already stole me
for washing dirty concentrates
to clean their $35 million
to reduce pollution
maybe we should just stop polluting
bila
and now it’s dry
And your leather boots keep crackin’
Only the skin on your face knows the time
But the bank of the river, your body
badha where you sit
While your eyes keep burning
And you, filling up with tears
As if it’s the only way
to bring back water
Used to be a river
■■■■■■■■■
Dale Collier is an artist, writer and experimental musician of Wiradjuri and Northern European heritage. His works involving the fusion of hyper-objects and global conditioning have recently been exhibited within the Art Gallery Of South Australia’s 2019 Ramsay Art Prize and the Parliament Of New South Wales 2018 King & Wood Malleson Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award.
In 2019 Dale was awarded the Windmill Trust Scholarship facilitated by the National Association for the Visual Arts, and commenced projects with Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery, Cementa Contemporary Art Festival and The Lock Up Contemporary Art Centre.
He is currently an artist in residence with the City of Melbourne at the Boyd Studios Community Centre, and previously undertook residency within the Bundanon Trust First Peoples Residency Program and the Arteles Centre for Creativity in Haukijärvi, Finland in 2019.
Dale lives and works upon the Sovereign Lands of the Awabakal, Worimi and Kulin Nations, where he pays deep respects and acknowledges the custodianship of Ancestors, Elders Community and Kin past, present and future.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.