Beside his heavy-shouldered team
thirsty with drought and chilled with rain,
he weathered all the striding years
till they ran widdershins in his brain:
Till the long solitary tracks
etched deeper with each lurching load
were populous before his eyes,
and fiends and angels used this road.
All the long straining journey grew
a mad apocalyptic dream,
and he old Moses, and the slaves
his suffering and stubborn team.
Then in his evening camp beneath
the half-light pillars of the trees
he filled the steepled cone of night
with shouted prayers and prophecies.
While past the campfire's crimson ring
the star struck darkness cupped him round.
and centuries of cattle-bells
rang with their sweet uneasy sound.
Grass is across the wagon-tracks,
and plough strikes bone across the grass,
and vineyards cover all the slopes
where the dead teams were used to pass.
O vine, grows close upon that bone
and hold it with your rooted hand.
The prophet Moses feeds the grape,
and fruitful is the Promised Land.
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Comments
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This poem is not really about the bullocky
From guest Ron Wiseman (contact)
per se. It has a theme which instructs Australians of the mid-C20 that they would cut off their links to the pioneers at their own peril. -
words ^^
From guest lily (contact)
this was really good i like the wasy you used you're words this is an inspiring poem... -.- -
does any one know the form of this poem???? i would love to know if you do... or the form of metho drinker?
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Bullocky is a written artform, it describes in fascinating tactile images and metaphors the eventual death of an exhausted Bullocky. it tells of the Bullocky's final lonely days. years of naught but bulls for company, the only voice being his own as he cries out into the nothingness, waiting for a response, and left wanting. finally his loneliness breeds demented fantasies, his eyes and ears play tricks, yet he does not resist it. his hallucinations, his fiends and angels, are his only company. so he surrenders to insanity, and for that flitting moment before death he experiences peace. he is sung into the long awaited death by the cattle-bells. after that we read of the Bullocky being discovered, many years later, in the vineyard. "The Prophet Moses feeds the grape, and fruitful is the Promised Land." the Bullocky is at rest in the soil of the Promised Land (Australia) he is where he is meant to be, feeding the grapes, as part of life and Earth as he ever was.
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u guys!Be nice! its a poem, which are meant to be interpreted in different ways! i think its a great poem, and language has been used well.
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