Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 Uncategorized Dinosaur Brendan McDougall curled up in a dead world now underground, stroking brontosaurus’ long, fictional neck & you can’t help but see yourself in the kitchen light’s reflection on the screen. He eats leaves as you watch his wise eyes watching for predators blink & the wind tears away his name like flesh, heating and cracking apart his bones & you’re sad, for a little while, or at least until you remember the papers your father signed at birth proving you were something and that that something was his & besides, this is Australia, a country built on digging up skeletons so even if they lose the paperwork your bones will always be your bones & when they come back for you because some southern-crossed lover needs unleaded to floor himself into the same tree his dad did all those years ago killing himself & passengers, well, then you’ll roar Brendan McDougall Brendan McDougall studies literature at the University of Melbourne and is from Ballarat. More by Brendan McDougall Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 7 February 2023 Aboriginal Australia Victoria police back down, is this a case for defunding? Crystal McKinnon and Meriki Onus After three arduous years, Victoria Police have today withdrawn their charges against two organisers of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest. Whilst we welcome their decision, we note that their mediocrity gave them no other option. Emboldened by their state-sanctioned impunity, Victoria Police’s ineptitude hit a dead end. Pigs cannot fly. First published in Overland Issue 228 6 February 20237 February 2023 Aboriginal Australia Winaga-li Gunimaa Gali: listen, hear, think, understand from our sacred Mother Earth and our Water Winaga-li Gunimaa Gali Collective To winaga-li, Gomeroi/Kamilaroi people must be able to access Gunimaa. They must be able to connect and re-connect. Over 160 years of colonisation has privileged intensive agriculture, grazing and heavily extractive water management regimes, enabled by imposed property regimes and governance systems. Gunimaa and Gali still experience the violent repercussions of these processes, including current climate changes which are exacerbating impacts, as droughts become longer, floods and heat extremes become more intense, and climatic zones shift, impacting on species’ viability and biodiversity.
