The Wreck Of Big Red

I have this four-wheel motor bike
that we all call Big Red.
For eight long years, he worked the land,
but now Big Red is dead.
I lent him to this hooligan
who calls himself my son
He headed bush on four wheels and
came crawling back on none.

He took two mates one weekend out
upon a camping trip.
They packed up the essentials...like...
C.D.'s, potato chips,
And Coke and swags - three scalawags,
all piled upon Red's back.
Before I could say: drive careful, they
were halfway down the track.

In all fairness, he's been ridin' on
that bike since he was six.
He uster show good common sense
when ridin' 'round the sticks.
He'd help me 'round the farm a lot -
my joyous little son.
Time slips away and rue the day
his teenage years begun.

So off he goes with his hooney mates -
I hardly could say: No.
What happened next, I'll only guess -
I guess I'll never know.
"We's mindin' our own business...Dad...
this tree...walked on the track...
Course Dad...I'm drivin' careful...but...
it sorta did attack!"

Attack!! - I'd say it did attack -
I'd say the ranges rang!!
Because my poor four-wheeler now's
bent like a boomerang!!
One headlights pointin' skywards and
the other's pointin' west -
The day he met that ironbark,
Big Red came second best.

His mates were fine, but my lout took
a gash upon his leg
And smashed his foot...his ego - it
was taken down a peg.
Now he limps 'round in bandages -
gets out o' doing' work.
He thinks it's really clever, and...
well, I'm the silly jerk -

As well as doin' my jobs now
I'm doin' all his chores,
While he's moanin' and groanin' like
a wounded from the wars
And as I have no motor bike,
I'm walkin' round the place,
While he lays there at the telly with
a smile upon his face.

His leg will heal, his foot will mend
alas for my mate Red,
It's gonna cost an arm and leg
to resurrect the dead.
And I'm just a poor bush poet with
a mortgage and a drought -
And getting' kinda cranky now
I have t' walk about.

So while he plays computer games
and lounges 'round at home.
I'm wearin' out good boot leather
everywhere I roam;
And my mate Red sits in the shed,
a sad and twisted shell,
With buckled wheels and mangled steel -
the motor bike in hell.

For show-off boys and Daddy's toys -
they just don't mix too good,
But my boy will soon be wishin' he
had driven like he should.
And he'll look back from the future, and
remember well the wreck,
'Coz once he's out of sutures, I
am gonna wring his neck!!...

Copyright; Graham Fredriksen