Day 3 bush poem 3:
This is a confronting original work from
Long John Best’s first print collection, Tall Tales.
You will see in the poem how Bestie
incorporated audience response to it.
P(rovisional) Plates indicate the new
driver has a restricted license.
Long John Best:
I wrote this to try to slow down the
senseless road deaths of our young people. Young people who are on the
threshold of life. They have been nurtured and loved to get to this stage, they
have taken on board an education to enable them to make their way in this
wonderful world, only to see it thrown away needlessly. For what?
P Plates
Heading home from, doesn’t matter, driven
further than makes sense,
When this car, coming towards me, leaves
the road, ploughs through a fence.
Hits a tree, this far above ground, then
explodes, disintegrates.
I pull up, you have to, don’t cha, might be
me, could be me mates.
I run back, I’m far from certain, not too
keen on what I’ll find,
While ’s not my problem, do not get
involved, keeps running through my mind.
And the sight I see before me is not one
that I’ll forget,
And the fact I couldn’t help at all, still
fills me with regret.
Five, yeah five, lay in and round the
wreck, all gone, I stood there, numb,
Settling dust and eerie silence, broken by
a cry for, “Mum.”
One survivor, it’s the driver, makes you
wonder, don’t it though.
Didn’t let on ‘bout the others, didn’t
think he’d wanna know.
I held him close but gentle, ambulance
wailing through the night,
Though he’d still not asked about his
friends, I think he knew all right.
I
feel, I felt his soul departing, as he let go, his last breath,
“Tell their parents I’m so sorry.” Then he
passed, from life to death.
But does “I’m so sorry,” cut it? It’s a
feeble, weak excuse,
For five families that are gutted, no, it’s
not much bloody use.
Never ever, can they be the same, though
their demeanour’s brave,
Their sense of loss, their sadness, they
will carry to their grave.
Kids, a Life is not some kind of game that
you switch off or on.
Sure, you can turn it off all right, just
once, and then it’s gone For ever.
Think, before you drink or drive, and never
mix the two,
Or this story you just heard from me, may
one day feature you.
Forgive me if I’ve upset some, I see tears,
some eyes are red.
But I’ll take upset any day, it’s far
preferable to dead
YOU CAN ORDER TALL TALES from your
physical bookstore (author Long John Best, publisher Bent Banana Books) or in
paperback or eBook from online-retailers including
https://amzn.to/3gHuWko
(paperback
and Kindle)
https://bit.ly/3iN3Wld
(Barnes&Noble paperback)
Here’s Long John Best performing:
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