Les Murray

The Harleys

The Harleys - meaning Summary

Riding Past Cultural Memory

The poem sketches a noisy procession of Harley riders as a theatrical display of lingering macho identity. Murray catalogues named, bearded figures and their leather-clad companions, emphasizing sound, movement and physical posturing. The image mixes mythic, Santa-like extravagance with the residue of 1950s screen cool—"forty years on from Marlon"—to suggest ritualized performance, generational memory and the stubborn persistence of masculine spectacle on the street.

Read Complete Analyses

Blats booted to blatant dubbing the avenue dire with rubbings of Sveinn Forkbeard leading a black squall of Harleys with Moe Snow-Whitebeard and Possum Brushbeard and their ladies and, sphincter-lipped, gunning, massed in leather muscle on a run, on a roll, Santas from Hell like a whole shoal leaning wide wristed, their tautness stable in fluency, fast streetscape dwindling, all riding astride, on the outside of sleek grunt vehicles, woman-clung, forty years on from Marlon.

default user
PoetryVerse just now

Feel free to be first to leave comment.

8/2200 - 0