Anthology of Australian Shorter Texts

Anthology of Australian Shorter Texts KWRSC Year 11 2013 Contents Story ‘American Dreams’ – Peter Carey ‘Postcards from Surfers’ – Helen Garner ‘Christos Mavromatis is a Welder’ – George Papaellinas ‘Night Training’ – David Malouf Poem ‘South of My Days’ – Judith Wright ‘The Surfer’ – Judith Wright ‘The Flame Tree’ – Judith Wright ‘Slate’ – Gwen Harwood ‘The Lion Bride’ – Gwen Harwood ‘Let us not be bitter’ - Oodgeroo Noonuccal ‘Municipal Gum’ – Oodgeroo Noonuccal Song ‘Everything’s turning to white’ – Paul Kelly ‘They Thought I Was Asleep’ – Paul Kelly ‘To her door’ – Paul Kelly ‘From Little Things Big Thing Grow’ – Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly ‘How to Make Gravy’ – Paul Kelly ‘This Country’ – Mia Dyson ‘Took the Children Away’ – Archie Roach ‘Black fella, White fella’ – Neil Murray ‘Treaty’ – Paul Kelly, Mandawuy Yunupingu, Kellaway, Williams, Gurrumul Yunupingu, Mununggurr and Marika ‘Blue Sky Mine’ - Martin Rotsey, Robert Hirst, James Moginie, Peter Garrett, Wayne Stevens Story Poem ‘South of My Days’ South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country, ‘The Surfer’ rises that tableland, high delicate outline of bony slopes wincing under the winter, He thrust his joy against the weight of the sea; low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite- climbed through, slid under those long banks of clean, lean, hungry country. The creek's leaf-silenced, foam—- willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple (hawthorn hedges in spring, thorns in the face stinging). branching over and under, blotched with a green lichen; How his brown strength drove through the hollow and coil and the old cottage lurches in for shelter. of green-through weirs of water! Muscle of arm thrust down long muscle of water; O cold the black-frost night. the walls draw in to the warmth and swimming so, went out of sight and the old roof cracks its joints; the slung kettle where mortal, masterful, frail, the gulls went wheeling hisses a leak on the fire. Hardly to be believed that summer in air as he in water, with delight. will turn up again some day in a wave of rambler-roses, thrust it's hot face in here to tell another yarn- Turn home, the sun goes down; swimmer, turn home. a story old Dan can spin into a blanket against the winter. Last leaf of gold vanishes from the sea-curve. seventy years of stories he clutches round his bones, Take the big roller’s shoulder, speed and serve; seventy years are hived in him like old honey. come to the long beach home like a gull diving. During that year, Charleville to the Hunter, For on the sand the grey-wolf sea lies, snarling, nineteen-one it was, and the drought beginning; cold twilight wind splits the waves’ hair and shows sixty head left at the McIntyre, the mud round them the bones they worry in their wolf-teeth. O, wind blows hardened like iron; and the yellow boy died and sea crouches on sand, fawning and mouthing; in the sulky ahead with the gear, but the horse went on, drops there and snatches again, drops and again snatches stopped at Sandy Camp and waited in the evening. its broken toys, its whitened pebbles and shells It was the flies we seen first, swarming like bees. – Judith Wright Came to the Hunter, three hundred head of a thousand- cruel to keep them alive - and the river was dust. Or mustering up in the Bogongs in the autumn when the blizzards came early. Brought them down; ‘The Flame Tree’ down, what aren't there yet. Or driving for Cobb's on the run up from Tamworth-Thunderbolt at the top of Hungry Hill, How to live, I said, as the flame tree lives? To know what the flame tree knows – to be and I give him a wink. I wouoldn't wait long, Fred, prodigal of my life as that wild tree not if I was you. The troopers are just behind, and wear my passion so? coming for that job at the Hillgrove. He went like a luny, That lover’s knot of water and earth and sun, him on his big black horse. that easy answer to the question baffling reason, branches out of my heart, this sudden season. Oh, they slide and they vanish I know what I would know. as he shuffles the years like a pack of conjuror's cards. How shall I thank you, who teach me how to wait in quietness for the hour to ask or give: True or not, it's all the same; and the frost on the roof to take and in taking bestow, in bestowing live: cracks like a whip, and the back-log break into ash. in the loss of myself, to find? Wake, old man. this is winter, and the yarns are over. This is the flame-tree; look how gloriously No-one is listening That careless blossomer scatters, and more, and more. South of my days' circle. What the earth takes of her, it will restore. I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country These are the thanks of lovers who share one mind. full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep. – Judith Wright - Judith Wright ‘Slate’ ‘Let us not be bitter’ Away with bitterness, my own dark people Come stand with me, look forward, not back, For a new time has come for us. Now we must change, my people. For so long Time for us stood still; now we know Life is change, life is progress Life is learning things, life is onward. White men had to learn civilized ways, Now it is our turn. Away with bitterness and the bitter past; Let us try to understand the white man’s ways And accept them as they accept us; Let us judge white people by the best of their race. The prejudiced ones are less than we, We want them no more than they want us. Let us not be bitter, that is an empty thing, A maggot in the mind. The past is gone like our childhood days of old, The future comes like dawn after the dark, Bringing fulfilment. – Gwen Harwood - Oodgeroo Noonuccal ‘The Lion Bride’ I loved her softness, her warm human smell, ‘Municipal Gum’ her dark mane flowing loose. Sometimes stirred by rank longing laid my muzzle on her thigh. Gumtree in the city street, Her father, faithful keeper, fed me well, Hard bitumen around your feet, But she came daily with our special Rather you should be barefoot into my cage, and set it down: In the cool world of leafy forest halls our love feast. We became the talk of town, And wild bird calls brute king and tender woman , soul to soul. Here you seems to me Like that poor cart-horse Until today: an icy spectre sheathed Castrated, broken, a thing wronged, in silk minced to my side on pointed feet. Strapped and buckled, its hell prolonged, I ripped the scented veil from its unreal Whose hung head and listless mien express head and engorged the painted lips that breathed Its hopelessness. our secret names. A ghost has bones, and meat! Come soon my loves, my bride, and share this meal Municipal gum, it is dolorous To see you thus – Gwen Harwood Set in your black grass of bitumen-- O fellow citizen, What have they done to us? – Oodgeroo Noonuccal Song ‘Everything’s turning to white’ Late on a Friday my husband went up to the mountains with three friends They took provisions and bottles of bourbon to last them all through the weekend One hundred miles they drove just to fish in a stream And there's so much water so close to home When they arrived it was cold and dark; they set up their camp quickly Warmed up with whisky they walked to the river where the water flowed past darkly In the moonlight they saw the body of a young girl floating face down And there's so much water so close to home When he hold me now I'm pretending I feel like I'm frozen inside And behind my eyes, my daily disguise Everything's turning to white It was too hard to tell how long she'd been dead, the river was that close to freezing But one thing for sure, the girl hadn't died very well to judge from the bruising They stood there above her all thinking the same thoughts at the same time There's so much water so close to home They carried her downstream from their fishing; between two rocks they gently wedged her After all they'd come so far, it was late And the girl would keep; she was going nowhere They stayed up there fishing for two days They reported it on Sunday when they came back down There's so much water so close to home When he holds me now I'm pretending I feel like I'm frozen inside And behind my eyes, my daily disguise Everything's turning to white The newspapers said that the girl had been strangled to death and also molested On the day of the funeral the radio reported that a young man had been arrested I went to the service a stranger; I drove past the lake out of town There's so much water so close to home When he holds me now I'm pretending I feel like I'm frozen inside And behind my eyes, my daily disguise Everything's turning to white – Paul Kelly ‘They Thought I Was Asleep’ ‘To her door’ We were driving back from the country one night They got married early, never had no money Mum and dad up the front and the rest of us snug and Then when he got laid off they really hit the skids tight My kid brother grizzled for a little minute He started up his drinking, then they started fighting ‘Til my big sister told him he’d better quit or die He took it pretty badly, she took both the kids It had been a long day in the countryside She said: "I'm not standing by, to watch you slowly die Playing with the cousins on my mother’s side The sound of the radio closed our eyes drifting across So watch me walking, out the door, out the door, out the seat the door" And then I fell asleep She said, "Shove it, Jack, I'm walking out the fucking I don’t know what woke me up door" Maybe a country song or a big truck passing by She went to her brother's, got a little bar work I could hear my mama and papa talking He went to the Buttery,

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