- CROWS EVERYWHERE
- Dec 17, 2012
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CAW CAW CAW
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Hello friends! While I vainly search for work I have been volunteering at a local group for disabled adults, taking part in both administering the literacy program and running my own little poetry circle/workshop. Clients bring in poems they have created or ones they like and suggest poems for the group to read out and study, while I bring in some of my favourites, some I think they'll find interesting or engaging, and exercises related to some of the poems or adapted from ways the clients write and get inspiration. Because this is Australia, some of the poems are Australia-themed. Most of these haven't been posted here, so, enjoy!
Poetry Dump:  Version
Here are a couple by Judith Wright. She wrote about Australian florae et faunae and sometimes on social issues (she was a passionate advocate for indigenous land rights).
Magpies posted:Along the road the magpies walk
with hands in pockets, left and right.
They tilt their heads, and stroll and talk.
In their well-fitted black and white.
They look like certain gentlemen
who seem most nonchalant and wise
until their meal is served — and then
what clashing beaks, what greedy eyes!
But not one man that I have heard
throws back his head in such a song
of grace and praise — no man nor bird.
Their greed is brief; their joy is long.
For each is born with such a throat
as thanks his God with every note.
Metho Drinker posted:Under the death of winter's leaves he lies
who cried to Nothing and the terrible night
to be his home and bread. "O take from me
the weight and waterfall ceaseless Time
that batters down my weakness; the knives of light
whose thrust I cannot turn; the cruelty
of human eyes that dare not touch nor pity."
Under the worn leaves of the winter city
safe in the house of Nothing now he lies.
His white and burning girl, his woman of fire,
creeps to his heart and sets a candle there
to melt away the flesh that hides from bone,
to eat the nerve that tethers him in time.
He will lie warm until the bone is bare
and on a dead dark moon he wakes alone.
It was for Death he took her; death is but this;
and yet he is uneasy under her kiss
and winces from that acid of her desire.
Here are two by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, aka Kath Walker. She was a poet and prominent political activist, and Wikipedia informs me she was also the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse. If you want some context for her writing, it was only in the 1967 Referendum (a year after The Dawn Is At Hand was published) that Aboriginal people were given full citizenship rights. My grandparents, immigrants from the UK, had more rights as Australian citizens before they got off the boat than Aboriginal people.
The Dawn Is At Hand posted:Dark brothers, first Australian race,
Soon you will take your rightful place
In the brotherhood long waited for,
Fringe dwellers no more.
Sore, sore the tears you shed
When hope seemed folly and justice dead.
Was the long night wear? Look up, dark band,
The dawn is at hand.
Go forward proudly and unafraid
To your birthright all too long delayed,
For soon now the shame of the past
Will be over at last.
You will be welcomed mateship-wise
In industry and enterprise;
No profession will bar the door,
Fringe-dwellers no more.
Dark and white upon common ground
In club and office and social sound,
Yours the feel of a friendly land,
The grip of the hand.
Sharing the same equality
In college and university
All ambitions of hand or brain
Yours to attain.
For ban and bias will soon be gone,
The future beckons you bravely on
To art and letters and nation lore,
Fringe-dwellers no more.
No More Boomerang posted:No more boomerang
No more spear;
Now all civilized-
Colour bar and beer.
No more corroboree,
Gay dance and din.
Now we got movies,
And pay to go in.
No more sharing
What the hunter brings.
Now we work for money,
Then pay it back for things.
Now we track bosses
To catch a few bob,
Now we go walkabout
On bus to the job.
One time naked,
Who never knew shame;
Now we put clothes on
To hide whatsaname.
No more gunya,
Now bungalow,
Paid by hire purchase
In twenty year or so.
Lay down the stone axe,
Take up the steel,
And work like a friend of the family
For a white man meal.
No more firesticks
That made the whites scoff.
Now all electric,
And no better off.
Bunyip he finish,
Now got instead
White fella Bunyip,
Call him Red.
Abstract picture now-
What they coming at?
Cripes, in our caves we
Did better than that.
Black hunted wallaby,
White hunt dollar;
White fella witch-doctor
Wear dog-collar.
No more message-stick;
Lubras and lads
Got television now.
Mostly ads.
Lay down the woomera,
Lay down the waddy.
Now we got atom-bomb,
End everybody.
Here is a classic piece of poetry, by AB "Banjo" Paterson.
Clancy of the Overflow posted:I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just ‘on spec’, addressed as follows, ‘Clancy, of The Overflow’.
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
‘Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.’
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving ‘down the Cooper’ where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of ‘The Overflow’.
And, just because, here is the reply the actual "Clancy" (Thomas Gerald Clancy) wrote!
quote:Neath the star-spangled dome
Of my Austral home,
When watching by the camp fire's ruddy glow,
Oft in the flickering blaze
Is presented to my gaze
The sun-drenched kindly faces
Of the men of Overflow.
Now, though years have passed forever
Since I used, with best endeavour
Clip the fleeces of the jumbucks
Down the Lachlan years ago,
Still in memory linger traces
Of many cheerful faces,
And the well-remembered visage
Of the Bulletin's "Banjo".
Tired of life upon the stations,
With their wretched, scanty rations,
I took a sudden notion
That a droving I would go;
Then a roving fancy took me,
Which has never since forsook me,
And decided me to travel,
And leave the Overflow.
So with maiden ewes from Tubbo,
I passed en route to Dubbo,
And across the Lig'num country
'where the Barwon waters flow;
Thence onward o'er the Narran,
By scrubby belts of Yarran,
To where the landscape changes
And the cotton bushes grow.
And my path I've often wended
Over drought-scourged plains extended,
where phantom lakes and forests
Forever come and go;
And the stock in hundreds dying,
Along the road are lying,
To count among the 'pleasures"
That townsfolk never know.
Over arid plains extended
My route has often tended,
Droving cattle to the Darling,
Or along the Warrego;
Oft with nightly rest impeded,
when the cattle had stampeded,
Save I sworn that droving pleasures
For the future I'd forego.
So of drinking liquid mire
I eventually did tire,
And gave droving up forever
As a life that was too slow.
Now, gold digging, in a measure,
Affords much greater pleasure
To your obedient servant,
"Clancy of the Overflow".
e: I forgot Henry Lawson  He and Banjo did not agree with each other's interpretation of THE BUSH. Personally, I prefer Lawson's version of "The bush hates you and wants to kill you", if only because I had to grow up in a rural/remote low socioeconomic area.  (A couple of his not-about-the-bush ones have already been posted, because they are good on their own merits.)
Andy's Gone With Cattle posted:Our Andy's gone to battle now
'Gainst Drought, the red marauder;
Our Andy's gone with cattle now
Across the Queensland border.
He's left us in dejection now,
Our thoughts with him are roving;
It's dull on this selection now,
Since Andy went a-droving.
Who now shall wear the cheerful face
In times when things are slackest?
And who shall whistle round the place
When Fortune frowns her blackest?
Oh, who shall cheek the squatter now
When he comes round us snarling?
His tongue is growing hotter now
Since Andy crossed the Darling.
The gates are out of order now,
In storms the `riders' rattle;
For far across the border now
Our Andy's gone with cattle.
Poor Aunty's looking thin and white;
And Uncle's cross with worry;
And poor old Blucher howls all night
Since Andy left Macquarie.
Oh, may the showers in torrents fall,
And all the tanks run over;
And may the grass grow green and tall
In pathways of the drover;
And may good angels send the rain
On desert stretches sandy;
And when the summer comes again
God grant 'twill bring us Andy.
e2: the wife of edit
Who could have forgotten the magnum opus of Australia's richest person, Gina Rinehart? If you've ever wanted to know what Vogon poetry looks like (and what a Vogon looks like), well, here is your answer.
Our Future posted:The globe is sadly groaning with debt, poverty and strife
And billions now are pleading to enjoy a better life
Their hope lies with resources buried deep within the earth
And the enterprise and capital which give each project worth
Is our future threatened with massive debts run up by political hacks
Who dig themselves out by unleashing rampant tax
The end result is sending Australian investment, growth and jobs offshore
This type of direction is harmful to our core
Some envious unthinking people have been conned
To think prosperity is created by waving a magic wand
Through such unfortunate ignorance, too much abuse is hurled
Against miners, workers and related industries who strive to build the world
Develop North Australia, embrace multiculturalism and welcome short term foreign workers to our shores
To benefit from the export of our minerals and ores
The world's poor need our resources: do not leave them to their fate
Our nation needs special economic zones and wiser government, before it is too late
CROWS EVERYWHERE has a new favorite as of 08:32 on Sep 9, 2014
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Sep 9, 2014 07:46
