"bitumen" poems
Municipal Gum was written by Oodjeroo Noonecaal. Municipal Gum is about the changes in society and the tendency of people to want to control everything. Oodjeroo uses various techniques to convey this idea.
At the beginning of the poem Oodjeroo is addressing the tree. This immediately creates empathy for both the tree and her people. By the last line she has emphasised this with the pronoun “us” to show that they suffer a similar fate.
This poem expresses how life in Australia has changes especially for Aboriginal people. In the first half of the poem Oodjeroo is talking about how life was for her and others. It explores the changes in society and the displacement of the Aboriginal people from their land.
“Whose head hung…Its hopelessness”, the author uses this as further re-iteration of the immorality of the situation and by the use of analogy comparing the tree to her people to further emphasise the shame and lack control of that the Europeans have inflicted upon her and the environment.
Oodjeroo uses extended metaphor technique in the very first line of the poem ‘Hard bitumen around your feet’. This means that the gumtree has been placed in the city scape where it is suppressed and not allowed to spread out and be unique in its own way. This is clear and immanently direct link to the pain and suffering endured by the Aborigines post European settlement.
Oodjeroo uses vivid language to present these ideas. For example the use of the word castrated is very effective. The connotation of the word is very demeaning. With castration often comes a sense of a loss of pride and power. The word castration is symbolic of how Oodjeroo feels the European have treated Aboriginal people and the environment. Castration also refers to the fact that what is done is done. Nothing can undo what they did and the damaged they have caused.
Other symbolism includes the title “Municipal Gum”, municipal meaning community, implies that the gumtree belongs to the community. One of the vast differences between European and Aboriginal law is that Aboriginal people did not believe in the ownership of land or of animals and plants. Municipal Gum is a reference to the Europeans assumptions that everything is theirs to own and control.
The rhetorical question, “O fellow citizen, What have they done to us?” is the conclusion of the implications that have been made throughout the poem. Oodjeroo, is advocating for her people and all things wronged by the controlling behaviour of the Europeans. Rhetorical questions are used to provoke thought and to stimulate a pre-determined response. “What have they done to us?” They have “castrated, broken… strapped and buckled” and ultimately changed things to a point that they cannot be fixed.
In conclusion, Municipal Gum is a poem about the constrictions and change that the European invaders forced upon the Aboriginal community and the environment she believes that the Europeans have deemed themselves ever powerful and practice their power in a manner that is immoral.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 7:47 AM UTC
It was on Hallowe'en when we said we'd meet;
as we thought it might be romantically spooky;
and I trotted gaily along the pathway
through the dimly-lit park
where the predator gay *** maniacs roamed
hoping for a bit of backdoor action
and my excited little heart went
"YI YI YI YI YI YAAAAARRRGGGHHH!"
with eager anticipation
of a hot new nymphomaniac date.
We had been a-texting with
ever-increasing frankness
for several weeks and I was beginning
to get tired of wiping the keyboard clean
after each bout of frenzied
manual self-stimulation
which she had boldly urged me to
and the built-in camera was out of order
because of the damp ***** build-up.
I found the pictures she sent me
stimulating to say the very least
especially the one with the melon
peeping out from between her legs
and I found her blood-red eyes
rather exciting really
once I got used to them;
and I was quite looking forward
to the love bites she promised me
which was why I had washed my neck
with particular attention to the blackheads.
Promptly at the stroke of midnight
my putative mistress arrived
with a ******* great clap of thunder
and to say I was surprised by her sulphurous breath
would be putting it mildly
and the fifty-five inch waist
was a bit of a disappointment,
and I honestly and truly think
she might have mentioned
the suppurating scabs
and oozing boils
or at least hinted at them.
As I fought the ravening hell-bitch off
with the hatchet I had wisely brought
in my briefcase as a safety precaution
once more I rued my innocence:
how many times have I been let down
after such high hopes from internet dating
and yet - trusting soul that I am -
I had again let my heart go astray.
Once it was all over
and I gazed down at her hideous
and mutilated corpse bleeding
and twitching on the ****** bitumen,
I lifted up her skirt
just to check the melon photo
hadn't been a fake;
and although there was no large
piece of fruit in situ at the time
I could see it had always
been a very real possibility.
Sep 25, 2015
Sep 25, 2015 at 12:22 PM UTC
Built on the Berkley model
Paid for with mothers essential oils
...a bitumen
And a flower blooms from Medicine Rock
Like a ballerina
As the Old Man weeps joyfully
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 1:40 PM UTC
Out of the seething cauldron of my woes,
Where sweets and salt and bitterness I flung;
Where charmed music gathered from my tongue,
And where I chained strange archipelagoes
Of fallen stars; where fiery passion flows
A curious bitumen; where among
The glowing medley moved the tune unsung
Of perfect love: thence grew the Mystic Rose.
Its myriad petals of divided light;
Its leaves of the most radiant emerald;
Its heart of fire like rubies. At the sight
I lifted up my heart to God and called:
How shall I pluck this dream of my desire?
And lo! there shaped itself the Cross of Fire!
2.5k
I (Bread and Music)
Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.
Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.
For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,--
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.
II
My heart has become as hard as a city street,
The horses trample upon it, it sings like iron,
All day long and all night long they beat,
They ring like the hooves of time.
My heart has become as drab as a city park,
The grass is worn with the feet of shameless lovers,
A match is struck, there is kissing in the dark,
The moon comes, pale with sleep.
My heart is torn with the sound of raucous voices,
They shout from the slums, from the streets, from the crowded places,
And tunes from the hurdy-gurdy that coldly rejoices
Shoot arrows into my heart.
III
Dead Cleopatra lies in a crystal casket,
Wrapped and spiced by the cunningest of hands.
Around her neck they have put a golden necklace,
Her tatbebs, it is said, are worn with sands.
Dead Cleopatra was once revered in Egypt,
Warm-eyed she was, this princess of the South.
Now she is old and dry and faded,
With black bitumen they have sealed up her mouth.
O sweet clean earth, from whom the green blade cometh!
When we are dead, my best beloved and I,
Close well above us, that we may rest forever,
Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky.
IV
In the noisy street,
Where the sifted sunlight yellows the pallid faces,
Sudden I close my eyes, and on my eyelids
Feel from the far-off sea a cool faint spray,--
A breath on my cheek,
From the tumbling breakers and foam, the hard sand shattered,
Gulls in the high wind whistling, flashing waters,
Smoke from the flashing waters blown on rocks;
--And I know once more,
O dearly beloved! that all these seas are between us,
Tumult and madness, desolate save for the sea-gulls,
You on the farther shore, and I in this street.
2.5k
Snow's melted, and all she's got left is the cone,
the skeletal bone streets, where she was
yesterday once so Snowwhite pretty.
Mountainous mounds of **** from canine and human kind
allude to beasts that roamed these streets in nights gone by.
They thought their tracks and cigarettes butts were covered
in a cloak of snow, but sun can't wash away sin.
All she's got left is the grit, beneath fingernails, iron rails,
bitumen - Pech! - from clinging on too long to yesterday.
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM UTC
It’s almost 6, and the night is fighting with the last rays of sun,
Its armor and sword are both stronger the glow of sun, Stars comes out like your eyes, breathing down my neck,
Sitting across the Chinese restaurant in, with a cigarette dangling in your fingers blazing as harshly as bitumen laying on road as your skin on my skin was last night
You have been constantly eying me like I am breast of the freshly cut chicken,
I take slow sips of my beer, opening and reopening my fortune cookie, but it’s already been cracked and my fate has been sealed,
I pity the planets and us, we all are stuck in our orbits, and we always talk about the corruption in Russia and about pirates in Somalia,
We take detour of this city, and only this one, driving circles around the Wal-Mart, buying coffee beans and condoms,
I quiet my raging mind, which writes essays about the Greek gods and Atlantis; it fights with the night, but night plays word-games,
It twists its words into lyrics of lovers and pours them in my mouth, and twists its fingers in my ******
Its, almost 8, there are two bottles on the table, emptied like my heart, your ash tray full like your lungs with smoke and lust
Its 8, and sky is cobalt with streaks of lighter shades passing through like the Helicopters on Independence Day and I take this as my sign, and leave 20 dollar bill and a letter which screams “I’m gone”,
Bustling street and a Vegas sky welcomes my heart to the possibility of finding Atlantis.
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013 at 5:32 AM UTC
Morning pallor on a grey day
not a five cent shine
to the sun.
Bitumen hissed all night
trees tossed and tangoed
shuddered and split.
Navy clouds, blue with rain
surfed in from the ocean
racing on the wild wind
learning to scream.
The stones listened
moon listed and tried to find
a space in the cloud-tide rush
to quiet-light the gloom.
Morning Armistice on a pale grey day
of debris and displacement
refugees and leaf litter
surrender and detachment
silent and still
only a five cent shine to the sun
© M.L.Emmett
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
The days are becoming hotter
The sweat does not appear
But form into crystals of salt.
The bitumen laid roads are boiling..
The concrete jungles are oven baked..
For those who are well off,
The air conditioners roar day and night..
Either at home or at office
Or during the transit in the car..
For those who are not so lucky,
They manage it ..
For they have no other choice
Rather than to sweat it out..
Is it the climate change?
Or is it my feeling?
Or both?
Or..
Neither?..
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 5:58 AM UTC
Ferryman, will I rest in the white roses
that can nevermore grow infirm-
where the rivers from the deep blue forest
are joined by currents of blood and ink?
Ferryman, the forest of the sky is beautiful
like blue bitumen, verdigris life moves, expires and is
reborn between the plane of those who do not die
and above the garden of grief
"Come brother, let us sleep" the phantom says
"One-Hundred and Fifty cuts cover me from head to waist-
old and beautiful tears that keep me from sleep
The heat of my lamp is ready to fade"
Ferryman,where in the house of shade shall I finally rest?
The voice of my lord is broken and dried
In the glade of cedar trees, air flushes and suffocates
The blushing of the moonlight fades and the snowy stars elude her
Make me know the ways of righteousness
The ferryman leads me down the tremulous waters
his words have escaped me like the fearful night's eyes
and in the distance the sudden emptiness of the roses
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 2:54 AM UTC
Glowing Windows embedded into mouldy brick walls
Ivy climbing the gutters of neighbourhood roofs
Skies becoming burnt out like charred blackened fields
Tall spiny trees project shadows onto the road below
Leaves curl up to receive some weakening light from above
A formation of sputtering cars cling to each turn they decide to make
Cloudy milky light bounces off faulty windows that exhale the aroma of somebodies impending supper
A heavy truck manoeuvres itself into the blistered bitumen horizon
Dry deflated branches make obscene gestures towards passers-by
Gardeners rummage through their bags as they near the end of their working day
Their faces filled with an expired enthusiasm for breathing
Parked hunks of metal pelted with dead itchy leaves
Windscreen wipers hold fragile twigs down against grotty neglected glass
Chain-link fences link disparate housing and the sleeping people within
Some dispirited unsatisfied psychos gaze up as they catch a moving bus
Smoky Incense billows down from some apartment balcony
The air becomes cold and sharply fills these ordinary streets
Engine sounds try to supress the divine quietness
They only merge into it
Now the stars are out and about
Bright specks waddling in an aerial pool of dark blue
You turn the key and walk through the front door
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 11:24 AM UTC
It began outside a stable
Town of Bethlehem 2000 years ago
Shepherds left their fileds in awe
To find Jesus in wooden manger
Two lines to choose back then
One compulsory, one was not
Caesar's census; revenue and crowd control
Other line was quiet; sanctified, seeking Christ Child
Wise men far away, figured, joined the queue
Followed the star, joined the queue
On sand and snow or bitumen black
Trekking fields, forests thick or cities tall
Across the earth, people know
Where to find the queue
Not online; Get up and go
Christmas Eve or Christmas Day
Local churches, chapels small
Country barns, church cafes
Line up outside the doors
Worship Jesus
Dec 19, 2011
Dec 19, 2011 at 7:10 AM UTC
I drive my bus
Full of grotty kids and lunatics
On the bitumen dream
Where middle aged mothers with boxers' eyes
Weep from the sidewalks of toy-trashed suburbs.
Driving my bus,
Through the unfolding flower of dawn
And through the tangled tears of night
Where the boisterous poor
Wilt in their gardens of excess.
Driving them home,
Driving lover to lover,
To their acrobatic fields of fire,
Driving the madman raging in his seat
And the girls with rainbows in their eyes.
Driving
Driving
Into the sorrow beyond the sky
And into the hollows of the lonely hearts
Who linger, speechless, at my ear,
As we drive, and drive.
Where the gutter ghosts rattle their dying coughs
Into the emptiness of night
And the half-cocked girls smoke toughness and cool
And the burning boys
Writhe in the furnace of desire.
The streets are crying in the pools of time
And the dogs are howling in the summers of their heat
While the ladies are waiting at the corners of our youth
With their handbag smiles,
And the faces we will never see again
Go sliding, Go sliding by.
Mar 5, 2016
Mar 5, 2016 at 6:31 PM UTC
Luna (Latine Lunae) est terrae sola naturalis satellite. [E] [F] [VIII] licet non amet naturalis satellitis in Systemate Solare est, inter satellites maioribus signis maxima quod ad magnitudinem orbes obiecti (primarium) [g] [a] et post Io satellite Jovis, qui est secundus densa inter densitates satellite cognoscuntur.
Luna est in vna *** orbem terrarum, et semper, et faciens facies, *** cis insignis, quae per tenebras inter maria volcanus editis clarus, et veteri crusta impactus crateres prominent. Est enim post solem in coelo et immutari. Quanquam autem id candidissimam, obscurus etiam superficie *** bitumen reflectance fessis tantum leviter superior. Huius temporibus perquam cyclus regularem habere in coelo, quia antiquitus in luna lingua maximus culturae opes, fastos artis fabularis. Producit vim gravitatis luna dies et tempora et levi freta. Nunc de orbita lunae distantia diameter vicibus terra in caelum facit ut fere idem sit qui apparet Solis. Nempe per id fere totum solem lunam eclipsin solis tegere. Hoc simile est de magnitudine visuali fortuitum apparens. Lunaris a terra distantiae lineae sit amet, crescens ad rate of 3,82 ± 0,07 mm per annum, id est, non tamen semper. [IX]
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 3:58 PM UTC
Portrayed in an artiface
Of long and grey rhymes
Replayed in a video
Of really bad lines
Lost in a tangency
Of bitumen and brick
Tangled in quagmire
Of cigarettes and sick.
Lurching through life
In yesterdays clothes,
Acting the part
That nobody knows,
Chic desperation
Apparent to all
With the certainty
She’s for a terrible fall.
Miasma of moods
Through a ***** blue haze,
Insulting a friend
In an instant of craze,
Sprawled on the street
In a leopard skin skirt,
Makeup awry
Broken nails in the dirt.
Screaming abuse
To the well meaning hand,
Lost, alone
In a drug ridden land,
Fearful of shadows
And clinging to those
Who lustfully use
To so casually dispose.
Blond hair falling
Down over her face
Mascara running
In smears of disgrace,
It’s dangerous to stagger
Through traffic in rain
With lost high heel,
Tear streaked in pain.
Vagrants for company
Hunched in a cell,
Shivering cold
And ****** to hell
In a moment of clarity
And startlingly clear,
A small shimmering hope
Lies so distantly near.
Marshalg
@theCoalface
Victoria Park Tunnel
8th May 2010
May 7, 2010
May 7, 2010 at 12:36 PM UTC
I feel like a needle
In the groove of vinyl
Running
Sounding
Vibrating
Singing
Her bitumen
The grooves are cut
Deep in the mud
For you to sound well
Designed
As you are
Aug 3, 2023
Aug 3, 2023 at 2:06 AM UTC
jet of bitumen,
a relaxed snaking coils
in the seeking hand.
tiny galaxies
b u r s t
and trinket words
shatter
all across the torched-glass plain----
frigid smouldering.
honest candescence--insulation,
clarity where the freshly birthed meet senex
and ashen widows dissipate
into thin air
I find Havisham in the glow.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 1:34 AM UTC
The afternoon light filters in through the shutters,
that look out towards the quiet cul-de-sac;
festooned with houses and quiet green lawns.
My room's walls are licked with yellow slashes
and lattices. Evening smooths the afternoon
into darkness with its brittle fingers and those yellow
slashes are interchanged with a diffusion of white neon
from the buzzing streetlamps. Oh how noisily they buzz
next to the flowerbeds! And people fold their lawn chairs and
go into their warmly lit houses and house pets roam blackened
curbs amongst the hedge delineations between homes and old
clocks wind down throughout the houses in cul-de-sac laced with
bitumen and broken glass.
Dec 2, 2011
Dec 2, 2011 at 8:58 AM UTC
a song. “400 lux,” you said. “lorde.”
i nodded. i knew it. i loved it.
*we’re never done with killing time, can i **** it with you?*
first driving so slow, creeping through the dark suburban roads, the car’s headlights sweeping over front lawns and pale bitumen, breaking through the shadows from the trees on the nature strips.
then driving fast, on the highway, on the overtaking lane all the way to the city, where we wander aimlessly street by street for a long time but it’s really only an hour or so.
and then where we crash - a cosy little coffee shop with dim lighting and low seats - open twenty-four hours and the perfect place for you and me and other people like us, because there are others like us, i know it. i see them in the passing windows of crawling cars and across the cafe at two thirty am when i’m sipping my hot chocolate and holding your hand over the coffee table.
“do you ever yell at people *‘i want to **** you’* but like in your head?” you asked.
i tilted my head and nodded a little.
you nodded too, leaning back in your seat relieved. “yeah. good. me too.”
and so it goes.
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 7:42 AM UTC
I think of it, sometimes
in passing that corner. or
climbing those stairs,
two bodies entangled against
the rail. getting off
the rails. did they, too
recognise something
stranger in a stranger?
something I too thought
I had found. that night
I saw it. I was sure. the light
behind the pain. fireworks
behind closed eyelids.
ready to chase it all down
the rabbit hole. I was
already falling: Wonderland
wondering, wandering lost.
but no. it was just -
just a wet puddle
on impassive bitumen.
just a mirage. a trick
of the light.
whose light? I suppose
it was nothing, just
something very
ordinary
after all.
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 8:37 PM UTC
To leave my glassy shell
And wander ‘twixt the verdant hills
Only to gaze at the industrial city as it spills.
Over this once quiet landscape,
Now choked with bitumen black roads and luminous eyes which keep vigils and forebode.
The skies licked by sound and smoke
Staring down at the shuffle of ill-proportioned buildings amidst a sea of compounding unknown things.
To walk down the narrowing alleys and breathe and smell the stagnant vapour;
Watching the walls crumple like old letter paper.
The street lamps like black spears; upright and joyless.
With lights that cast shadows like dancing daemons
Disappearing at the sight of the early mornings;
Dawn. This has always been and always will be.
Jan 5, 2012
Jan 5, 2012 at 6:15 AM UTC
1.
the wind is prone to grand festival
if you cook your own food
by burning your hands
in the day time
at night
then you will be also eligible
for having a ticket
this train will not stop at any station
then how would you get on board
why
then do jump in front of the wheel
the door gets open automatically
you would also be a companion
of that joy
your name will also come up
on the list of the blood donors
with blood there will also hang
pus and spew
the colonialists
with a black face
will wind up their indigo-factories
in the fire of the intellect
the undergarment will burn
there will come running
bolder and bitumen
the road is made
your lipstick will be
sometimes deep
sometimes light
tearing open the yellow afternoon
a storm will take birth
there will be no darkness
in the amloki-grove
2.
the ship is scheduled to start
from jetty no 3
i come to stand on
platform no 13
when i get on board the carriage
standing near
it takes me and runs to a vast
run-way
there are the lines of
sweet briar
i do not feel the pain of detaching
from the soil
when i am flying
through the smoothness of the lotus-leaf
i see a musk-deer was also running
in a parallel line
she stretches her hand
to take me
to the valley of her flesh
we are turning round and round
to enter into a volcano
and the flow of its eruption
is carrying us towards a ever-snow land
Sep 13, 2010
Sep 13, 2010 at 5:35 AM UTC
Swimmers under sandstone overhangs
Pink tree of flowers a sculpture
Blazing in a summer extending
Into the next season.
Concrete another blue to the horizon
Icons accumulated across the harbour
Mansion upon edifice, street after avenue
Walkers approach in droves raising dollars.
Children splash throwing soft missiles
No particular target.
At the head of the bay low tide
Reveals ***** scurrying this way and that.
Climbing hills of leadlights, bricks and money
Worlds away yet just beside
Walls in which many inhabit
Accounts of monumental difference.
Waters lap & lick at rocks
Ragged shells of oysters cracked
Joggers pound the bitumen
Lines of rare ants travelling.
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC
Out here emptiness could swallow you up-
without concrete and houses to keep it company
a road is just a lick of bitumen and stone pretending importance
Jun 1, 2012
Jun 1, 2012 at 8:16 PM UTC
We’ve navigated the old canals
Since the roads were blocked with cars,
And we were stuck when the highway truck
Rolled over the top of ours,
They poured a layer of bitumen
Across the roofs of them all,
Then crushed them under a steam roller
Until they were flat, and small.
They didn’t bother to pull them out
The ones who were trapped inside,
Just wrote them off the accounting books
And made a note that they’d died,
They needed to halve the ones who lived
Or the earth would sputter in space,
Spinning across that great divide
With the death of the human race.
But we got out, and we made a break
For the fields and the old canals,
And found a deserted barge afloat
Thanks to the help of pals,
We got some paint and we cleaned it up,
Made it all right to roam,
Then once inside it was quite a ride
And started to feel like home.
Most of the waterways were clear
With some of them overgrown,
I’d send Gwen Darling back to the rear
To steer while the weeds were mown,
I’d scythe them out of the way ahead
And steer the barge through the gap,
Then rest at night by a harvest moon
With Darling Gwen on my lap.
I’d bag a hare on a winter’s night
And steal the milk from a cow,
The earth was dying, but we survived
And Gwen kept asking me how?
‘We’re going back to the way it was
Before computers and such,
Before the Banks had us by the throat
When love was lived by a touch.’
So still we wander across the land
As they did in the days of old,
Those ancient barges, covered in dust
But laden, carrying coal,
There’s a merry fire on a metal hearth
And an oven, full of a goose,
And a woman’s wiles, to gladden my heart
As her stays are coming loose.
David Lewis Paget
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 8:08 AM UTC