Frank
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 6:10 pm
I thought I'd post this poem, which won Second Prize in the Open category at the Toolangi CJ Dennis Poetry Competition last weekend.
Frank
© Stephen Whiteside 23.03.2011
The apple of his parents’ eyes, he headed off to War.
He felt obliged to do his bit to even up the score.
A married man, he could have stayed. There was no expectation,
Yet still he felt he must perform his duty for the nation.
His parents lived in Hawthorn, and they lived the city life.
(Garry was the husband, and Roberta was his wife.)
They kept a sweet weekender, though, to top them up with gas,
A place they christened ‘Sunnyside’ in southern Sassafras.
Working for the Tramways, Garry had a host of chances
To place his hands on tramcars now retired from their dances.
He towed them to his paddocks where they settled in the loam,
And artists came, and loved them as a home away from home.
Frank took an office possy, but his heart just wasn’t in it.
It seemed to last an hour when it had only been a minute.
He chucked away his suit and tie. He headed for the hills,
And found, just like his parents, that it chased away his ills.
He took himself a berry farm. He found himself a bride,
And there they lived together down the road from ‘Sunnyside’.
The life was quite demanding. Almost every second night
He must take the fruit to market, and be there at morning light.
A writer name of Dennis in a tramcar took up camp.
Good comradeship and cheer relieved Toolangi’s cold and damp.
Although a decade older, he became good friends with Frank,
A happy circumstance that we have reason now to thank,
For Dennis wrote a novel - wrote a novel all in rhyme
About a chap named ‘Bill’ whose early life was steeped in crime,
But he took the ‘straight and narrow’ and became a real charmer
When he married, and became, like Frank, an honest berry farmer.
So Bill was Frank, or Frank was Bill - in part, at least, that’s true.
Then Frank went off to join the War, and vanished in the blue -
Killed at Mont St. Quentin in that desp’rate, deadly game.
For Garry and Roberta life could never be the same.
Gone now was the gaiety and joy of ‘Sunnyside’,
Replaced, instead, by misery, and sorrow’s sobbing tide;
Gone now Den’s bright banjo, gone the poetry and song.
Just stood two silent, aching hearts, where once a noisy throng.
Success arrived for Dennis, fame and fortune, adulation,
And through his words he fast became a hero of the nation.
If ever, though, you read the ‘Bloke’, leave something in your tank
For Garry and Roberta, and their dear beloved Frank.
Frank
© Stephen Whiteside 23.03.2011
The apple of his parents’ eyes, he headed off to War.
He felt obliged to do his bit to even up the score.
A married man, he could have stayed. There was no expectation,
Yet still he felt he must perform his duty for the nation.
His parents lived in Hawthorn, and they lived the city life.
(Garry was the husband, and Roberta was his wife.)
They kept a sweet weekender, though, to top them up with gas,
A place they christened ‘Sunnyside’ in southern Sassafras.
Working for the Tramways, Garry had a host of chances
To place his hands on tramcars now retired from their dances.
He towed them to his paddocks where they settled in the loam,
And artists came, and loved them as a home away from home.
Frank took an office possy, but his heart just wasn’t in it.
It seemed to last an hour when it had only been a minute.
He chucked away his suit and tie. He headed for the hills,
And found, just like his parents, that it chased away his ills.
He took himself a berry farm. He found himself a bride,
And there they lived together down the road from ‘Sunnyside’.
The life was quite demanding. Almost every second night
He must take the fruit to market, and be there at morning light.
A writer name of Dennis in a tramcar took up camp.
Good comradeship and cheer relieved Toolangi’s cold and damp.
Although a decade older, he became good friends with Frank,
A happy circumstance that we have reason now to thank,
For Dennis wrote a novel - wrote a novel all in rhyme
About a chap named ‘Bill’ whose early life was steeped in crime,
But he took the ‘straight and narrow’ and became a real charmer
When he married, and became, like Frank, an honest berry farmer.
So Bill was Frank, or Frank was Bill - in part, at least, that’s true.
Then Frank went off to join the War, and vanished in the blue -
Killed at Mont St. Quentin in that desp’rate, deadly game.
For Garry and Roberta life could never be the same.
Gone now was the gaiety and joy of ‘Sunnyside’,
Replaced, instead, by misery, and sorrow’s sobbing tide;
Gone now Den’s bright banjo, gone the poetry and song.
Just stood two silent, aching hearts, where once a noisy throng.
Success arrived for Dennis, fame and fortune, adulation,
And through his words he fast became a hero of the nation.
If ever, though, you read the ‘Bloke’, leave something in your tank
For Garry and Roberta, and their dear beloved Frank.
