The Back of Whoknowswhere!

I’d had a spat with my only love

So I set out in the car,

She said, ‘Well, where are you going to?’

I answered, ‘Eversofar!’

She said, ‘That isn’t the name of a place,

You really drive me spare!’

I said, ‘Oh yes, it’s a place all right

At the back of Whoknowswhere!’

 

So off I went, and pointed the nose

Of the car along the track,

I didn’t know where it would take me to,

Except to the Great Outback,

A man could get lost in this country, for

It’s huge, beyond compare,

And every road and bullock track

Leads on to Whoknowswhere!

 

I travelled north and I travelled west

And a good bit in-between,

The countryside was a-glow that day,

The trees and the fields were green,

I passed the town Wotwillya-Do

And began to count the cost,

For by the time that the sun went down

I knew I was more than lost.

 

I stopped at a pub called ‘Halfway There’

Took a room, and unrolled my pack,

Then I saw the other side of the sign

That proclaimed it ‘Halfway Back’.

I thought that I’d better sleep on it

To decide which way was best,

Did I want to be tied forevermore

If our love had failed the test?

 

I asked the publican where we were

And he answered, ‘Onyarown’,

And out in the bar were single men

Who knew that their hopes had flown,

So I drove due East on a narrow track

That the publican said was fair,

Would take me back to a major road

And the township called ‘OutThere’.

 

It struck me then that our lives had hinged

On the track that we chose to drive,

And every choice took us further from

The place that we felt alive,

The countryside became burnt and brown

The further I drove away,

So I took a right and I headed south

When I hit the town ‘Dismay’.

 

Why do we ruin a perfect love

When that love is not to blame,

And take ourselves off eversofar

That it never can be the same,

We try to reclaim the one we’d been

When we’d wandered, way out there,

But the one we’d been has long since fled

To the back of Whoknowswhere.

 

No matter which way I’d twist and turn

There seemed no getting back,

There wasn’t a simple way to go,

Not even a bullock track,

So I called her up on a mobile phone

And she cried when I said I cared:

‘I’ll still be around if you're coming home

From the back of Whoknowswhere!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

I'm with Roarke on this one. There is a a sober little lesson to be found in this witty piece. And yet, it appears that there may be a road back should the wanderer truly be coming home. Loved the wordplay in this - the town names "Dismay" "Onyarown" I think I've been there.

[Onku Ghosh]

On a light note it was fun read. Loved your narration and the fictitious names of places- Whoknowswhere, OutThere,WotwillyaDo,EversoFar and........As always I enjoyed reading this one too

[Keith]

Thats a fun read. And that brilliant second last stanza...

"Why do we ruin a perfect love
When that love is not to blame,
And take ourselves off eversofar
That it never can be the same,
We try to reclaim the one we’d been
When we’d wandered, way out there
But the one we’d been has long since fled
To the back of Whoknowswhere."

Also, I was just been going through some "Bush Poetry" on another web site where I encountered some awful clunky verse. Coming back to this reminds me why your perfect rhyme & metre makes every one of your poems a delight to read.

[roarke]

I'm seeing some heavier thought than the prose on the surface. Maybe it's why men usually don't stop to ask directions, they'd have pause to think....

Finding our way back or finding our way there is the swim of it. Along the way, there are signs that we initially can't decipher, yet they start to collect and we begin to see our directions more clearly... at least the lucky among us do.

As always David, I dig your stuff.

[SyberRose]

I have a bad sense of direction and now i'm really lost haa...There is a town in New Mexico called
Bird in hand...and Truth or Consequences and intercourse haa....so I guess Whoknowswhere isnt too bad.:)
Great write David...it was fun reading..:)

[K. Louis]

This was fun to read out loud...and you're quite good at telling stories in rhyme. Nice job David!