TRAVELER
Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 7:53 am
TRAVELER
I remember a young fella – a fit and healthy bloke
a shearer from the back blocks of Moree
who liked a beer down at the pub – who'd sit and roll a smoke
who thought perhaps he'd join the infantry.
He's back in Moree once again – returned from desert plains,
and searching for the lost ghost of his past.
Doesn't have the return fare, for his journey to nowhere -
who was it said “you know that life's a blast?”
He rides on buses and trains but the noises still remain
in his head – he can hear machine guns roar,
and the shouts and screams of mates – way too hard to contemplate,
for many mates will never see these shores.
He eats dinner for one – he's always eating on the run
for restlessness now won't let him be still.
Sometimes on darkest days he contemplates the many ways
of finishing the job with one more kill.
He seeks deeper shades of meaning - from voices demeaning
that constantly run whisp'ring through his head.
They just continue talking - like the Taliban stalking -
somedays he simply wishes he was dead.
But now he's a traveler – a mindset unraveller
a man who feels he's no choice but to run.
For there's fear within his mind for those mates he's left behind.
It's the legacy left to him by the gun.
Maureen Clifford © 11/10
I remember a young fella – a fit and healthy bloke
a shearer from the back blocks of Moree
who liked a beer down at the pub – who'd sit and roll a smoke
who thought perhaps he'd join the infantry.
He's back in Moree once again – returned from desert plains,
and searching for the lost ghost of his past.
Doesn't have the return fare, for his journey to nowhere -
who was it said “you know that life's a blast?”
He rides on buses and trains but the noises still remain
in his head – he can hear machine guns roar,
and the shouts and screams of mates – way too hard to contemplate,
for many mates will never see these shores.
He eats dinner for one – he's always eating on the run
for restlessness now won't let him be still.
Sometimes on darkest days he contemplates the many ways
of finishing the job with one more kill.
He seeks deeper shades of meaning - from voices demeaning
that constantly run whisp'ring through his head.
They just continue talking - like the Taliban stalking -
somedays he simply wishes he was dead.
But now he's a traveler – a mindset unraveller
a man who feels he's no choice but to run.
For there's fear within his mind for those mates he's left behind.
It's the legacy left to him by the gun.
Maureen Clifford © 11/10