A poem about a car

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Tina Dubinsky

This humerous poem, about a car, was first published elsewhere on the web. It has had a few revisions over the year, mostly to refine the beat and rhyming scheme.

Sometimes, poetry comes naturally to me in the moment. Othertimes, I have to examine and pay close attention to the rhymes, metre and alliteration.

While doing my Masters, I enjoyed learning how to create song lyrics and find rhyming words by using a spreadsheet. This song writing process can easily be adapted for poetry.

The Virtue of a Car

When I was nine and nearly ten
My daddy, I remember clearly when
He traded in our rust bucket Holden
For a Datsun Bluebird, slightly olden.
Pride was plastered upon his face
As he parked it in front of my school place
And took pleasure in showing me
Our 'new' car for all the kids to see.

The car would ferry us from A to B
Like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, it seldomly
Let us down unless the lights were left on
And drained the battery 'till all life was gone.
There was a time when increasing speed
The little car's warnings Dad did not heed
Planting his foot down to do twenty k'
The beetle shaped bonnet up and flew away.

Our Datsun Bluebird survived my teenage years
Its faded green appearance brought out my fears
I would demand when being picked up at school
For the car to be parked far away as a rule.
The car was an icon in our small village
Where it was left unlocked without fear of pillage.
And more than once, it paraded the streets
To be met with vocal harassment and human bleats.

The car from the sixties had character
It was more unique than a court Archiater
With holes in the floor through which I could peak
And watch the road pass directly under my feet.
For an ignition, Dad pressed a dual light switch
As he'd lost the car keys and since we weren't rich
Avoided the locksmith. With coins to spare
Dad fitted a power point, an innovation still rare.

When it came to the local police enforcement
Our vehicle was not a huge endorsement
For cars that passed the registration requirement
When the coppers believed it was passed retirement.
We knew all the back streets, for we were wise
To avoid their ever gazing eyes.
The acquisition of spare parts was not hard
For Dad had two other Datsuns in the yard.

My Dad; he did cherish his little Bluebird
And to part with it was a crime unheard
But there came a day when we did leave
To a city that caused Dad to grieve
For he could not take our little car
As driving it down would be too far.
On its last run, when Dad stopped in the yard
The gearbox collapsed, the car took it hard.

I'm glad to announce it didn't end there
For a few months later, with some flare
The car we thought of as our very own Herby
Towed a caravan in smash-up derby.

© 2011 Tinsky 1

1 The original poem, The Virtue of a Car, was written in 1995 but was revised and originally published on Hubpages in February 2011.

Background Information on this Poem.

I based this poem on a true-life story of one very loved Datsun Bluebird (in our lives from 1979 – 1990). My dad taught me drive in this car. I had to pump the break on more than one occasion and slam the gears into place.

Years later, while taking real driving lessons with a license, my driving school instructor voiced his concerned about this learnt behaviour.

This car started by using a dual light switch. After loosing the keys to the ignition, my dad installed the dual ‘light’ switch to start the ignition. He also installed a double power point in the back of the front seats. The powerpoints were handy when camping or when Dad needed power for his tools.

At one point, Dad drove the car through the town of Mackay (Nth Queensland, Australia) with naked store shop dummies sitting posed on its roof.

Our Datsun Bluebird drove on the many back roads around Mackay, including “The Jump” on the way to Seaforth. Once, Dad took the doors off to drive through a flooded Pioneer River at the bridge behind the Marian sugar mill.

He also worked on the engine constantly and replaced it more than once. He had great pleasure in showing me an asbestos mat under the hood. The two spare Datsun Bluebirds that sat in our yard were very handy, especially when I backed out of the yard one day and forgot to close the driver’s door.

The door caught on our wire fence and crumpled like a piece of paper. So, Dad just took a grey door off one of the spare cars and replaced it as if nothing was wrong.

Dad bought this car for about $500 and drove it for over ten years without a license.

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