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Dec 29, 2015
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Old Man creek
Cuttlefish fish cloud and
stucco stipple sky
Baked yellow grass
white hot land the colour of beach pebble eye
A sun painting engorged with eels
seems ageless, and appeals
To our sense of indigenous conscience
but painted in the last decade
When atrocities had burnt through
already, and run to hills dry
Where wide flat paddocks filled
with fattened sheep, looking down
On the middens of the dead
from their hillside retreat
Watching them sleep among the dunes
and only heard in the occasional echo of the
restless sea..
About This Poem
Last Few Words: Bones of an idea after a visit to the west coast, more to follow.
Style/Type: Free verse
Review Request Direction:
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
Review Request Intensity: I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft
Comments
Roscoe Lane
9 years 6 months ago
I like this,
I like this a lot just one critique, and it was something explained to me when i first came to Neopoet. The lines on your poem all start in capital letters, try setting your computer to eliminate this. It makes your poem easier to follow. Regards Roscoe...
vandiemenspeak
9 years 6 months ago
Yep, I'll Google that one Roscoe...
Thanks, it has been pointed out previously - pure laziness on my part. Just found it on "How to Geek" ;) - will fix that one up right now. Take care.
Race_9togo
9 years 6 months ago
Hello
Only criticism I have is...well, its not really a criticism.
"Cuttlefish fish". Do you mean that cuttlefish are fishing? I just cannot decide!
This is very powerful, vivid, and timeless. I really like the dichotomy of domesticated livestock and the dead that they have replaced, and the arid desert and the ocean, at the end.
Good poetry.
vandiemenspeak
9 years 6 months ago
Hey Jim,
Just on the Cuttlefish - was more just an image of place, as in the shape of the clouds, as mentioned in the description, just a brief sketch of a starkly beautiful area (Oyster bay - west coast Tasmania) - so the cuttlefish and the middens were a bit of a liberty, more descibing this, the Cuttle bone shape of clouds:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Cuttlefish-Cuttlebo…
Although the scene does take some liberties, it does more or less depict the fate of the west coast indigenous tribes after white settlement - a good source of material here:
http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book.aspx/1289/The%20Black%20War-%20Fear,%20%2…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Augustus_Robinson
There's a lot of "convenient silences" - as someone put it, discussing the frontier wars of colonialism in Tasmania. Too big a subject to discuss here ;) - but a recurring theme in a lot of the stuff I write about. Thanks for having a look!
Cheers.
Chris.
Esker
9 years 6 months ago
I like the cuttlefish fish cloud thing
like a fifties beat...like cymbals with a brush..
shh shh..fissh fissh
Oh Ive been about for years
and I was forced to watch minnows..
forced to sit and watch water over a falls
by the brilliant
the women...they just wanted me at their
side resting
putting their hand on my chest or head
to listen while my heartrate fell to normal
my breathing to a sleep level
happy that I was calm
and normal enough
for I never am
agitated and wild restless and prowling
so peaceful poems are always fascinating
too me
I have Time Out by Dave Brubeck and love
the old jazz people...
but always moving
ADD and all that
now I have to force myself too bed and shut
my mind off
and face the vivid vivid dreams I have
knowing I will wake up in character
and shoving for the past five months
myself ahead
via substance and sleep deprivation
too avoid all sensitive and emotional
intel that all the rest have dealt with
.
arriving back in country doesnt mean
I have left The country
but I do like the poem
its peace
the detailing!
I did it once...I know U must have
sat quiet and watched the
bay!!
thanks for the poem
peaceful
reflective
I need this!
vandiemenspeak
9 years 5 months ago
Hey, glad you could "Take 5"..
Sorry, couldn't resist that, Brubeck and McRae I think, loved it. I found a 4 track vinyl of " Take Five" in the back of a mothball-wood polished and dust cupboard when i was about 8 years old, belonged to my old man who went round all the jazz clubs in the fifties before joining the army, found Miles Davis ("Straight no chaser" - never forget the cover) in there too, and Coltraine..hmmm. I often tried to imagine him in his youth, sitting in "Ronnie Scotts" - look up some of the people who played in that place - list at the bottom..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Scott%27s_Jazz_Club
Lucky bugger
Take care.