Last Call

I spun the car in a squealing turn

To come to rest by the Olsen gate,

Pumped the pedal and rammed the horn

And yelled: ‘You ready? It’s getting late.’

The curtain moved in the morning breeze

The door was slammed, and the figure swayed

Across the lawn with a lurch, a wheeze

And down beside in the Chevrolet.

 

We left the rubber at ditch and bed

A broken rose in the churning air,

‘We’d better stick to the coast.’

‘You bet!’ I didn't want to be seen out there.

A star, set grim in the early sky

To warn of perilous nights ahead:

‘By Christ, I’ve got to get out of here,

I’ve got to get out before I’m dead!’

 

‘You're out!’

‘You bet.’ And he heaved a sigh

The sigh you’ve heard when the world has wept,

The rattling, broken wreck of a lie

That was old when Cain in a paddock crept.

‘We’ll take the easy Parkinson road,

The road your father, (before he died),

God rest his soul, and the rest beside

The road he took when your mother left.

 

The startled eyes, at a memory

So old, (when nothing can bring them back)

A flash, a glimpse of a loving face

The date, red-ringed in the almanac.

‘It’s been so long!’ And I knew it had,

We’ve all discovered the truth before;

‘What’s lost is lost and it won’t be back,

The tide is never the tide you saw.’

 

I gunned the motor to hear it scream,

The pain of metal is lost on me,

I’d rather the world be drowned in dreams

Than left to mourn in its imagery.

‘I’ve seen your face on a million men

Who fought to conquer the where they were,

You’ve sought and struggled, and failed again...

‘What else could I do - I failed with her!’

 

The car was drumming a mournful note

On tyres that told of a thousand roads,

The wreck of many a dreaming scheme

Of many a twist and turn, untold.

‘You’ve lost the race, are you glad to go?

There’s many a man has lost before,

It’s better for those who fall behind

There’s only pain at the open door.’

 

‘I’ve lived with pain!’

‘If you stay behind

The pain gets worse as the years are short.’

‘And if I go?’

‘There’s a chance you’ll leave

Them all with the thought of what you weren’t.’

‘There’s little choice.’

‘But there is a choice,’

I let him think on the things I’d said;

‘By Christ - I’ve got to get out of here,

I’ve got to get out before I’m dead!’

 

David Lewis Paget