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Author: Michael Sharkey

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    My mother the Surrealist

    • Michael Sharkey
    • 14 October 2019
    3 Comments

    The voices of two women in the train up to the highlands rise in volume and insistence ... 'Mother, they're not Germans. I said, gerberas, they're all around the farm. Just wait, you'll see them from the window of the lovely room we've set up for your stay. A field of gerberas in full bloom.' 'And are the Germans all in uniforms, then, dear?'

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Corroboree in the sky

    • Michael Sharkey
    • 17 December 2013
    2 Comments

    The bird that has no feathers mocks my language. Runs and flaps its wings at me but cannot fly. Throws land-things at me. We laugh like water, make corroboree in sky.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Colonial garden party

    • Barry Gittins, Michael Sharkey and Chris Wallace-Crabbe
    • 02 December 2013
    3 Comments

    The diggers' catchcry, liberty, saw fascism a'yawning/ enfranchisement followed suit, with racism adorning/ its streamlined passions for the cause — White Australia Policy a'borning.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Boat people poems

    • Michael Sharkey and Barry Gittins
    • 19 July 2011

    Bought after the wreckage of a shoaled first marriage, the becalmed, calming painting survived a bachelor's anchorage, flotsam and jetsam, to find love. Peace. Safe, prized harbour under muted tiles and a stultifying light orb.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Church tourist

    • Michael Sharkey
    • 26 October 2010

    Reflecting on the brutal way the hierarchy treated her, I see the logic of the place she holds in this ambiguous space. Born in murderous times among such vicious things as men become where power is at stake, she stands among the metal, glass and stone ...

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