Russian Monument to Bikers

Whew! Well, that was a close shave… if I hadn’t turned a headlong dive into a combat roll, I’d have gone face first into the tarmac and that, as they say, would have been that. “It would have been ‘Goodnight’ from me; and it would have been ‘Goodnight’ from him!”

Two and a half weeks in hospital, three operations on the foot, nearly $10,000 worth of surgical scrap metal rods, plates and screws holding my foot and ankle bones together, and another couple of weeks of home-recuperation later (and with more operationls to come… “Oh, joy!”) I’m still unable to do much, but I’ve finally recovered enough energy to keep my promise to make a contribution to Poet’s Corner.

To that end, it seems appropriate at the present moment in time to offer you, “Dave, the Mad Biker from Hell”, which I’d like to dedicate to the Bruised and Battered Bikers’ Brigade, and to all the nurses and staff at the RAH, especially the nurses on Ward R3/Orthopaedics.

Dave, the Mad Biker from Hell

1: You may keep your tales of glory
Of wealth and power and fame
And I’ll tell you the story
Of one who wouldn’t play that game:
A hard-riding crazy Irishman
Who, so I’ve heard tell,
Is known by the name,
And it’s earned him some fame –
As ‘Dave, the Mad Biker from Hell’

2: From the cold Streets of London
Young David had come,
To Australia’s sunny shores.
His busker’s life he’d leave behind;
It’s hardships he’d deplored.
A New Start he’d work hard to make,
And he’d succeed for sure…
Until one day fate laid his path
To the Uni’s hallowed door…

3: Now, Dave had but one ambition,
And all he sought was knowledge,
So he studied really hard
At Elizabeth Community College…
Then to Uni off he went,
As proud as proud could be
To study Anthropology
And earn him a degree.

4: He passed with flying colors;
To do honors was invited.
But then they made him student rep
And his career was sorely blighted
When they disestablished the department
Of Anthropology
And he was made to fight his teachers
And the whole Arts Faculty.

5: He knew it was no accident,
The situation had been crafted:
Volunteered, real ‘Army-Style’;
He knew that he’d been shafted…
Now the winding road it calls him,
For he knows that he must find
A different kind of future
To the one he left behind.

6: Now he rides the lonely road
In silence, and solitude serene
While he ponders on the irony
Of all he’d heard and seen.
Even those who had supported him
Could now all kiss his ass
For those he’d represented, (of course),
Had been mostly middle-class.

7: Like his life, Dave’s ancient bike reflects
Cruel hardship and poverty
The clutch worn through, the brakes near gone
The tyres as bald as he;
But he doesn’t care for he knows full well
He’s more chance now than then,
Of survival, as he rides this wreck,
As ‘Dave the mad biker from Hell’.