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.

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 ******* 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-***** 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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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]

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.

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.

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.

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 *******’ 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.

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.

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

We counted seventeen that morning,
driving in circles around Greenbelt Park.
Biding time before preschool drop-off,
we moved in measured paces beneath
a verdant canopy of oak and Virginia pine,
crossing diminutive rivulets repeatedly,
revisiting the same downed tree limbs
and tired park signs, disappearing and
reappearing in mist, our languorous
revolutions seemingly interminable,
each lap lost behind our slipstream.

It was a game we played together,
my daughter and I, circumnavigating
that slight road and counting the deer.
We tallied the bucks, does, and fawns
in plain sight, either ignorant or bold.
Vigilant, we watched for minuscule
movements beyond the windshield,
subtle stirrings in the understory:
a foreleg caught in a confusion of ferns;
a white tail, brazen, above the blueberries
or hovering, a clump of cotton atop holly;
caramel eyes cupped in mountain laurel—
ephemeral proof, woodland intimations.

Most days, we saw nothing
but familiar creatures as we
circled, spinning our wheels.
If we parked on the shoulder,
the black ribbon of bitumen
seemed to move beneath us still,
a vinyl track playing under tires,
daughter and I locked in place—
two diamonds at the tip of a needle,
skipping across prosaic grooves.

But the morning of the seventeen!
The moon hung dilatory in the sky,
a winking crescent eye, opaline.
And with each loop, the number grew.

-------------------------------------

Two years later, I circle back,
my daughter and I walking
toward a black fishing pier,
gulls etching invisible lines
into an aquamarine sky.

I ask her if she remembers
those rides before preschool,
if she remembers the morning
we saw those seventeen deer.
We pause, waves washing
white sea foam over our feet.  
She looks beyond the breakers,
taking in the horizon’s hard line,
a crisp indigo seam that appears
to stitch the round world straight.
One hand rests on her bony hip;
the other grips a shell-filled pail.
She turns, sizing me up with the
cold skepticism of a six year old,
and shakes her head in disbelief.
She tells me I’ve got it all wrong:
It couldn’t have been that many.

I’m tempted to argue. Instead,
I ask her, why does that number
(seventeen!) seem too high.

She looks at me, incredulous.
What am I trying to prove?
She speaks in small measures,
makes herself perfectly clear:

We were driving
in circles, Daddy,
and the deer,
the deer,
they move.

At once the horizon bends,
azure arc in space and time;
gulls stall in midair, snapshots
above suspended breakers. Silence.
Suddenly I’m back in Greenbelt Park,
treading nimbly, veiled by ivy screens,
leaping broken dogwoods cantilevered
over precious shallow streams,
muscles, ears, and eyes electrified.
I see as the unseen eighteenth deer
would have seen us—two creatures
harnessed in a restless death machine,
recumbent gods marking territory.

Around again. Wait.
Another close orbit.
Scrutinize red taillights
fading to distance and
then explode, vaulting
across alien asphalt,
hard halo of misery:
unnumbered,
exalted,
infinite.

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

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.

I’d never felt comfortable in that house
Not once, since we’d moved on in,
A rambling, derelict, barn of a house,
Three storeys of age-old sin.
Nobody said there’d been murders there,
Or told of the gypsy’s curse,
Three hundred years of discarded junk
And I don’t know which was worse.

The air was dank, and creepy and cold
So I opened the windows wide,
Trying to get some airflow through
To clear the smell inside.
It was musty, dusty, smelt like a tomb
With a corpse, decayed and grey,
We cleaned and scrubbed it room by room
And the smell went slowly away.

We tackled the ground floor first, we thought
We could leave upstairs til last,
The stairs were blocked with a French chaise longue
From some distant time in the past,
It was jammed hard up by the bannister rails
So it wouldn’t go up or down,
I said I’d have to pull it apart
And that sparked a Hartley frown.

Hartley was the love of my life
Who tackled that house as well,
She said it was a pig in a poke
That its real name was ‘Hell!’
But we finally cleared a space to live
And she worked out a way to shift
That French chaise longue from the stairway by
Trying a twist and lift.

The second floor was a nice surprise
There was none of the junk and grime,
The bedrooms still remained as they’d been
Laid out in another time,
So Hartley dealt with the dust in there
While I went up for a look,
The room above was an attic room
And that’s where I saw the book.

It lay on a dusty table with
Its pages ragged and torn,
The paper a sort of parchment and
The ink, quite faded and brown.
The cover was ancient leather, cracked
And worn, as if by an age,
‘The Many Lyves of this House’ it had
Embossed, as a title page.

I cautiously opened the cover, read
The words on the parchment page,
The light in the room then turned to gloom
And a storm began to rage.
I raced on down to the ground to find
A man outside, who said,
‘For those inside, don’t seek to hide,
I say, bring out your dead!’

And a cart stood out in the street outside
A pile of the dead in place,
The street was cobbled, not like before,
But of bitumen, no trace.
And on my door was a huge red cross
With a white and painted scrawl,
‘God, have mercy on us,’ it read,
‘Have mercy on us all.’

And there on the floor, inside the door
Was a corpse wrapped in a sheet,
I dragged it out by the feet, no doubt,
And I left it in the street.
On climbing back to the topmost floor
I leapt and pounced on the book,
But the page had turned, and the fire burned
Before I had time to look.

London burned in the distance and
Lit up the night like day,
I didn’t know of it then, but it
Was burning the plague away,
And every page in that cursèd book
Brought a different time to bear,
‘The Many Lyves’ that this house had lived
Were all inscribed in there.

I slammed that leather cover shut
And I laid it on its face,
Then swore that I’d never open it
While the Lord would lend me grace.
And Hartley, dragged from her cleaning chores
She never could understand,
Why I put a torch to that ancient house
And burnt it to the ground.

David Lewis Paget

‘I’d swear that the sun is hotter,’ she said,
‘It’s hotter than I can recall,
The garden’s turned into a desert, is dead
My plants are fried up to the wall.’
I said I agreed, the car was so hot
I often got scorched by the steel,
The belt with the buckle was always red hot
And so was the steering wheel.

I said you could tell by the state of the road
Could tell by the bitumen melt,
The surface was shiny with liquefied tar
The heat off the surface you felt.
Beyond was the countryside, brown and bereft
Not a single green shoot could you see,
The bushes were brown from the top to the ground
And there wasn’t a leaf on a tree.

‘The place is like tinder, it just needs a spark
And it all will go up with a roar,’
We couldn’t survive in the smoke from the park,
We would have to be gone, well before.
I told Desdemona to pack us a case,
Just those things we would need on the run,
Some food and some water, a doll for our daughter,
Remember to pack us a gun.

We took it in turns to keep watch through the night,
To listen to every slight breeze,
The heat was intense, we looked over the fence
For any strange light through the trees,
It came from the valley, that terrible roar
So we knew that the demon was out,
Some one lit a spark way down in the park
And Des raised the house with a shout.

The three of us piled in the four wheel drive
And headed up over the hill,
The terror of flames in the rear view mirror
Have plagued and have haunted me still.
The wind had been gusting and fanning the flames
Pursuing us on our retreat,
Had crept up beside us and threatened to ride
Ahead to our certain defeat.

The heat so intense it had cracked the screen
And blistered the paint on the door,
When Desdemona let out a scream
To point to the gun on the floor.
‘Is this why you asked me to pack the gun,
Is it either that, or burn?’
I’d not meet her eyes with a tissue of lies
So I masked my own concern.

I heard her pray as the tyres caught fire
And exploded, one by one,
I kept the pedal flat to the floor,
It was either that, or the gun.
Then out of the darkness loomed a lake,
It was water up to the doors,
We came to rest where the water blessed
With the fire held back by the shores.

The skies were grey and they opened up
With God’s good grace at the dawn,
I held my wife and my daughter close
As the rain made us feel reborn,
When the people tell me there is no God
I just smile, and I let them go,
If he isn’t there then I find it odd
That he sent the rain…  I know!

David Lewis Paget

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

The boy who hangs his story from the bridge.
As if by fairy tale told minutely to a desperate lover.
Her tormented eyes
picturing this broken neck;
his story told in the lingering art of death.  Or

he who faces the train to Ferny Hills
and each commuter who remembers
that day’s monotony as bits of him
slapped against a carriage like
someone throwing wet fish.  Or

the pass-over traffic
grumbling at the fall of tragic demonstration - a
boy not welcomed anywhere except by the earth
that took him in with a kiss of bitumen.  Or

balanced on needle point, a
thousand thousand weights pressing death
into an arm embracing the TV-cable guide and
a torn photograph of Jennifer the mud wrestler.
And all this waste
sending little statistic waves of shock that don't anymore.

Gone to sleep like the boys who left us.
Early sleep. Early rise and forget the
sons who disappear in a magician’s finale.
The cloak of social history that accepts this.
The magic
abracadabra of disturbed unhappy youth.