I suppose 'blasted' would be even simpler
P very simple himself simply said modestly
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Lawrence Upton
Sent: 03 January 2014 12:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Crossroads
Would not "bitumened" do it? I mean as well as "bitumenised" but less of a
mouthful. I'm not sure it's better in any other way L
On 2 January 2014 21:08, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks, Doug. I was trying with 'Bitumenised' to leave the final
> impression that the feisty girl had left us in her wake. She was the
> only fluid thing as opposed to us: interested parties, enforcers,
> onlookers, all rendered static by her spirit, blending in with the
> road only she could walk upon. But it's hard to do all that in a word. I
made one up.
>
> I'm open to alternative suggestions.
>
> Cheers,
> Bill
>
> > On 3 Jan 2014, at 5:54 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > Yeah, the story & its tension is there, Bill. Not sure I get
> 'Bitumenised.' Just well oiled on the night?
> >
> > Doug
> >> On Dec 31, 2013, at 10:53 PM, Bill Wootton
> >> <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Ah b'leve ah won't be sinking down, then, on the strength of your
> praise, Andrew.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Bill
> >>
> >>> On 1 Jan 2014, at 2:14 pm, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> A recognisable moment there in a fine narrative poem. (I'll play
> >>> Crossroads, the Robt Johnson version, now to kick off 2014 - then
> >>> the Clapton one. Brilliant stuff.)
> >>>
> >>> Andrew
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On 1 January 2014 00:20, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> First for 2014 is a reworked job. Greetings all for new year.
> >>>>
> >>>> Bill
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Crossroads
> >>>>
> >>>> i
> >>>>
> >>>> I was standing at the crossroads. Port Fairy.
> >>>> 1986. I was not alone.
> >>>>
> >>>> Two, maybe three hundred people stood at the crossroads that
> >>>> Saturday night. Milling about.
> >>>>
> >>>> Strange expression, milling. As if we were making something.
> >>>> Something more than a ragged circle,
> >>>>
> >>>> looking in.
> >>>> The corner streetlight shone through flicking insects
> >>>>
> >>>> on glistening black skin.
> >>>> Her headband was not up to the task
> >>>>
> >>>> of absorbing night sweat, righteous lather.
> >>>> Left hand brandishing a can of VB,
> >>>>
> >>>> right hand dismissing the concerns of a host of scraggy
> >>>> Commancheros, whose black bikes,
> >>>>
> >>>> evenly reversed to the kerb outside The Stump, one-eyed the lot
> >>>> of us.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ii
> >>>>
> >>>> Younger than either the Aboriginal woman or any of the bikers,
> >>>> two policemen,
> >>>>
> >>>> both sporting blue short-sleeved shirts bearing crease-marks
> >>>> ironed in that folk festival morning,
> >>>>
> >>>> paced uneasily, making brief eye contact with anyone speaking
> >>>>
> >>>> but mostly gazed over heads,
> >>>> expectantly.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> iii
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> It had started so simply. Sun had started to miss the tables
> >>>> dragged out to the front of the pub.
> >>>>
> >>>> From the shadow of the public bar, A black flash tripped or
> >>>> kicked an unexpected chair,
> >>>>
> >>>> sending it up on two legs, balancing, before toppling into the
> >>>> neatly parked Triumph Bonneville,
> >>>>
> >>>> which, almost graciously, folded down in the dust.
> >>>> One glance, instant decision.
> >>>>
> >>>> Off. Up and over the picket fence next door.
> >>>> Black legs pounding across paspalum.
> >>>>
> >>>> He was over the next fence before a single Commanchero was at the
> >>>> first.
> >>>>
> >>>> Punters piled out of the pub.
> >>>> Half a dozen of the least tubby bikers set off
> >>>>
> >>>> across the backyards of Port Fairy in search of Koori quarry.
> >>>>
> >>>> The rest assembled by their bikes, muttering, gesticulating,
> >>>> beers forgotten on tables, on grass.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> iv
> >>>>
> >>>> The shaping up at the crossroads might have begun when one of the
> >>>> Commancheros, suddenly sober, accused:
> >>>>
> >>>> 'That's his girlfriend. She was in the bar this arvo.'
> >>>> Or maybe she taunted them.
> >>>>
> >>>> I don't know. But I was there.
> >>>> With all the others. Massing.
> >>>>
> >>>> Not at High Noon. But at High Closing Time At 10 to 11. On a
> >>>> Saturday night.
> >>>>
> >>>> Distant violin and footstomp still, over at The Vic But folkies
> >>>> are not an incendiary bunch.
> >>>>
> >>>> 'Yaargh, ya weak bastards, all o'yez,'
> >>>> she spat, before turning and making her way
> >>>>
> >>>> through an easily parting channel of onlookers.
> >>>> Hairy Commancheros, police, folkers, me. Bitumenised.
> >>>>
> >>>> bw
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Andrew
> >>> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> >>> 'Undercover of Lightness'
> >>> http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html
> >>> 'Shikibu Shuffle'
> >>>
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-p
> ress-shikibu.html
> >
> > Douglas Barbour
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
> > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> > http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
> >
> > Latest books:
> > Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> > Recording Dates
> > (Rubicon Press)
> >
> > Swept snow, Li Po,
> > by dawn's 40-watt moon
> > to the road that hies to office
> > away from home.
> >
> > Lorine Niedecker
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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