Bernie pic

Bernie pic
Bernie

Sunday 12 July 2020

8 Days a week: Day 3

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)
 Proceeds to animal welfare, RSPCA QLD

Here’s Long John Best performing:




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