Unmanned

A free download from www.dertz.in
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Unmanned, by Stephen Oliver
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
? This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg eBook, Details Below **
? Please follow the copyright guidelines in this file. **
Title: Unmanned
Author: Stephen Oliver
Release Date: August 2, 2004 [eBook #13081]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNMANNED***
Copyright (C) 1999 by Stephen Oliver
Unmanned?Stephen Oliver
Also by Stephen Oliver
& INTERVIEWS?(Horizontal Press, 1978)
EARTHBOUND MIRRORS?(Horizontal Press, 1984)
GUARDIANS, NOT ANGELS?(Hazard Press, 1993)
ISLANDS OF WILDERNESS A ROMANCE
(Penguin Australia, 1996)
HEADWORX?WELLINGTON
(C) Stephen Oliver, 1999
First published 1999
ISBN 0-473-05753-0
Published by
HeadworX Publishers
26 Grant Rd,?Thorndon, Wellington?Aotearoa / New Zealand
Printed by
Otago Uni Print
Typeset by HeadworX Publishers
in Elegant Garamond 11 pt
HeadworX is a registered trademark
of HeadworX Publishers
This book is copyright.?Apart from any fair dealing?for the purposes of private research,?criticism and review, no part may?be reproduced without written?permission from the author.
Contents
I
Cultural Misappropriation?Word Maps
1. Down By The River
2. National Park Holiday
3. False Idols
4. Surveyors Party
5. Got Ourselves A Convoy!
6. Cultural Desert
7. Down By The Station
8. Continental Shelf Co.
9. Three Cheers The Militia!
10. Video Conference
11. Crow Country
12. Hills Of Home
13. Eco-Tourism Generation of Pat Boone & Tonto To Talk of Flags Words to Lure a Ghost Chistmas Emblems
14. Adam
15. Oblation
16. Detail
17. Born
18. Style
19. Beachcomber Transgenic Pigs Sheet Music Myth & Mariolatry Stork Unmanned Braidwood Modern Love Brilliant Losers Hotel Diligencias Wardrobe Drinkers Girl. Gold. Boat Domestic Pack Shots
20. The Gays Next Door
21. Working Hot
22. Hooking For Jesus
23. The Priest Across The Lane
24. Corruption Is Glorified Mateship
25. Inner City Camping Blues Tarts & Takeaways Who Killed Brett Whiteley Sugarbag Carpenter Aunty Eve Harold Lloyd Conrad & Wells & Co. Hoppalong Cassidy Bob Orr Dave Spencer You Dont Remember Dying Graham Clifford Bruno Lawrence The Still Watches
Poets have wrongd poor storms: such days are best;?They purge the air without, within the breast.
George Herbert
Cultural Misappropriation
is that what I hear you cry, citizen??If a delph-glazed moon with its O so?delicate pattern pans over Holland, flat as?a tack, it also comes by way of the?Antarctic circle right to your doorstep?in equal measure. If the sun clamps?its golden torque on mosque or synagogue, pa,?cathedral or sacred site, does this endorse?any one people over another? Is it your wish?to head off the cultural bandits at the?historical impasse, citizen, by placing a?patent on your mana? Beware the polemicists?who define and so divide, who aggregate?authority unto self where before lay none.?Symbol becomes the circumference of?time & custom. It is not the thing itself,?but the beautiful echo of a peoples harmonic?which cannot be bounded nor weakened.?Here lies the camouflage that protects the?ancient matrix, the silent memory of our?bloods journey & sound leads you to it.
Word Maps
1. Down By The River
Of the brain, mushroom shaped as?bomb blast, we project the image to?fact; up river from the torrent,?amongst the calmness of boulders, the?angler shadow-casts looping?the steady surface for the archetypal?fish whose leapt arch anticipates t?but the headwaters are held greyly?back by a concrete-net on this?dappled and uncaptured urban afternoon.?He deftly flicks & spools back and?forth from channel to channel.
2. National Park Holiday
If you go into the woods?today you will be part of a task?force moving in line-formation.?You will allow that the plastic yellow?tape which cordons off select?areas does not imply a Sacred Grove.?If you go into the woods?today, disinterment, not picnics,?is the order of inquiry. The?Vegetable Kingdom remains thoroughly?documented and every species is?accounted for; some of whom are?human, or parts thereof.
3. False Idols
It was always wood, wood?along the way, and exits went from?grove to sacred grove till deeper wood?lay beyond the Roman shield and sword;?that, though, belongs to another?picture book. The lyre-bird mimics the?chainsaw and Birds of Paradise?spit chips. Along the Hume Hwy. east?of Eden, a concrete Mountain Ash?dubbed Yggdrasil boasts a?wide-screen computer enhanced vista:?an arrow-straight monorail running?from Uluru clean through the Olgas.
4. Surveyors Party
These twin obelisks which guard?the southern entrance to the Great Sandy?desert, though partnered to a sun?fiercer than anything Egypt had to?offer, preside over a millennia of flat?emptiness, and attest to the prowess,?not of indigent cultures, but the?engineering whim of the LAND BARONS?who pray that one day, these too, will?invoke an air-conditioned resort for?the rich to dwell in, amongst hydromythological?fountains, playing?endlessly over sacred-site motifs.
5. Got Ourselves A Convoy!
Hi Ho! Hi Ho! But theyve been?laid off. Round Oberon, the town?spirit flat as a plank; then fury knots?in pubs. The big rigs aim chrome?cowlings at Canberra, Convoy! through?the ring roads to circle Parliament House?wagon-style. Hey, you cant knock?it: logging by generations for?generations have trod them down. Count?the rings of the rigs revving. Each?logger raw-red, necks blood-throttled.?Say what, anger? You can put a ring?around that, champ. Hi Ho! Hi Ho!
6. Cultural Desert
The earth is dismembered & what?remains gives evidence; clues: history?by blocks displaced as in the Aswan?Dam & the Temple of Philae. Osiris rolls?in the winding sheet of the Nile?(O moisture of the World!) and vainly?cry the