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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..

Style / type: 
Free verse
Review Request (Intensity): 
I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Review Request (Direction): 
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
Last few words: 
Bones of an idea after a visit to the west coast, more to follow.
Editing stage: 

Comments

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...

Roscoe Llane,

Religion will rip your faith off, and return
for the mask of disbelief that's left.

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.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment

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.

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

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-Cuttlebon...

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%20...

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.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment

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!

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.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment
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