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The Siren Gale (Sunday morning)

Submitted by vandiemenspeak on Sun, 2015-01-25 19:34

The Siren Gale (Sunday morning)

It is morning, I hear the sky tearing
Itself apart, cloud limb from limb in gales.
No longer early and I wake to start
At clattering bailiff windows, so alert

I reach for reasons that are known, yet scrawl
Them down for comforts sake, before the dawn.
A snarling chainsaw nearby cuts the limbs
Casually from things that deem to give us air

That sings through palings, sallies down the stair
Audible in its vociferous bawl
It fills the heads of those inside with fear
Trembling as the shimmer on the shore

As though a great ship rolling on the sea
Plaything on a night tide of the dark wind
That set the clashing waves about this place
The house becomes a moaning injured beast

That air, which all our lungs long to feast on
Day by day, has come to say its piece
And no benevolent voice among the meek
With strength enough to sing through tearing gale

Will reason with the thunderous lashing voice
That comes now, looking for its final claims
To valleys, boroughs and suburban plains
That once, were empty, listening to the wind

And swayed gentle, or creaked and bowed, humbled
By what they knew: empire indifferent,
Arbitrary ruler of the gums-
The same that crashes through the slums of man

Brought back, by sudden calm, I hear far off
Another siren song along the streets
Between the great roars now in slow retreat
I hear it rearing in the hills again

And strain to look above the parapet
To see the untamed thing roaring above
And senses strike me, lest I should forget
To rise and meet those faces that I love

Style / type: 
Structured: Western
Review Request (Intensity): 
I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Last few words: 
Roughly unrhymed pentameters - observing the ever more dodgy weather in the southern hemisphere.
Editing stage: 
Editing - rough draft

Comments

Esker

Sat, 2016-09-24 22:15

Esker's picture

my father feared it...
so I inherited his fear
and I loved it...
we had seventy foot high test power
poles out front...storms from the great
lakes seventy miles distance
would roll in....the wires sang in
a dirgeful moan..
as you aptly write
and beautifully
The beast of a house
very descriptive
I read this then
taken all this time to
comment..
I have taken U from
the Undiscovered list
..
I wonder what a splendid
thing a Gum tree would
be too behold!

thank U Chris!

vandiemenspeak

Thu, 2016-09-29 10:35

vandiemenspeak's picture
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The king of the gums....these earth bound rockets of glacial growth inhabit a small patch not 30 mins from where we are.among the tallest, if not the tallest in the world - and incomprehensibly ancient:

http://www.mdavid.com.au/trees/bigtrees.shtml

Took a ton of pics, with kids, in crazy lookouts and tree hollows as big as caves where bush rangers (our early outlaws - like Martin Cash - look him up) used to hide out from the English Red Coats...I like to lie underneath at the trunk and stare up through the canopy while the tourists trail by :)

Winds are fierce here too - some say spirits of Tutrawitta or Towenna or any number of Aboriginal ancients now long gone. Has a weird haunting vibe about it in some places Tassie, like some of the upper valleys seem to hold this great big silence, then pow, everything changes, and you find yourself in the middle of a squall..
May have shared this before, captures the desolation and isolation, the terrible beauty of those stuck on the notorious Sarah island on the west coast, reputed to be the most remote, ruthless and hardest to escape from penal colony in his majesties conquered colonies, really atmospheric, not much dialogue - some in Gaelic, the rumours of cannibalism and madness:

http://putlocker.is/watch-van-diemens-land-online-free-putlocker.html

Thanks for checking this one out, Will crack on and do some reading and posting at the weekend..

Seeya Esky,
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

Esker

Mon, 2016-10-10 10:02

Esker's picture

Sounds like a formidable landscape...Alls I remember most
is television back in the nineties...Zena warring Princess
and Gabby sidekick! New Zealand? from rock vids
I know a bit of Iceland...been from coast to coast and
stateside so I saw some pretty wild differences in trees...
Didnt see sequoias but Sitka Spruce are tremendously
Tall. The more wild the land...more man will push into
it to escape exist...madness and cannibalism went on
Native rituals etc....worship... Havent gone in the woods
in awhile
But
I remember well enough..Pines are soft ..tall.big bent
bough limbs at top..English came and got em for their
ships for years..masts! Huge hardwoods abounded
and still do in places missed by loggers...but most of
this has been logged off....

glad that you get out into the wilds with the family
Making effort to make good memories
then avoid...immure...Good for you.
Solid man!
some fathers get remembered
if we make time to find a mate..
I used too drag my daughter to the falls...
canoe rivers..climb trees...
no time to be sour then!

cheeky red coats...
English or any dominant or want to
be dominant force is cruel
they were not known for kindness
their history

I still love storms and the waves on
the lake...used to throw ballast stones
in my canoe and head out being
careful not to get swawped..
it was my fathers three hundred dollar
canoe after all!!
but heading away turning about an
island then into the thick of wind
and waves was a rush!!

shall check out the info shared my
brilliant friend!

Mr Esker!

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