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.
