Inside Ayers Rock Poem by Les Murray

Inside Ayers Rock

Rating: 3.2


Inside Ayers Rock is lit
with paired fluorescent lights
on steel pillars supporting the ceiling
of haze-blue marquee cloth
high above the non-slip pavers.
Curving around the cafeteria
throughout vast inner space
is a Milky way of plastic chairs
in foursomes around tables
all the way to the truck drivers' enclave.
Dusted coolabah trees grow to the ceiling,
TVs talk in gassy colours, and
round the walls are Outback shop fronts:
the Beehive Bookshop for brochures,
Casual Clobber, the bottled Country Kitchen
and the sheet-iron Dreamtime Experience
that is turned off at night.
A high bank of medal-ribbony
lolly jars preside over
island counters like opened crates,
one labelled White Mugs, and covered with them.
A two-dimensional policeman
discourages shoplifting of gifts
and near the entrance, where you pay
for fuel, there stands a tribal man
in rib-paint and pubic tassel.
It is all gentle and kind.
In beyond the children's playworld
there are fossils, like crumpled
old drawings of creatures in rock.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Adrian Flett 15 December 2018

The sad desecration of a sacred place is well portrayed.

2 0 Reply
Rajnish Manga 15 December 2018

A breath-taking landscape with a detail created by words. Awesome and probing. Thanks. A two-dimensional policeman discourages shoplifting of gifts

2 0 Reply
Sylvia Frances Chan 15 December 2018

I had been to Down Under several times included Ayers Rock. I know many things about Ayers Rock's historical and cultural background. You have created a good poem. Congratulations as the Modern Poem Of the Day! Ayers Rock is The Holy Place for the Original inhabitants, and inhabited this place since milliard years ago. They were killed and slaughtered by the colonists, now they own Uluru again as decided by the Australian Gov. A 10+

1 0 Reply
Lungelo S Mbuyazi 15 December 2018

Beautiful pictures drawn in this nicely crafted poem Congrats

0 0 Reply
Kumarmani Mahakul 15 December 2018

Well described poem amazingly shared. Thanks ad congratulation for being selected this poem as the poem of the day.

0 0 Reply
Michael Walker 31 July 2019

Ayers Rock is eternal and it attracts me like a magnet to go and climb it.I don't think Les Murray's poem does it justice though.

0 3 Reply
Keith Brown 12 June 2019

The layland brothers built a service area north of Sydney in the shape of Ayers Rock, seems to me the meagrely has. More to do with that place than Ularu tha has a very majestic and spiritual aura, The rock service station burned to the ground in 2018 I think, Ularu goes on for ever

0 0 Reply
Bernard F. Asuncion 15 December 2018

A well crafted poem by Les Murray👍👍

0 0 Reply
Douglas Scotney 15 December 2018

he's talking about a shop that's appropriated the name of the rock.

0 1 Reply
Tamara Beryl Latham 15 December 2018

Nicely penned with great imagery.

0 0 Reply
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