A car is a great convenience and I am very fond of my little silver grey Yaris but I shall always remember the opening lecture at a magistrates' training day when a police officer stood at the lectern as said 'Never forget that when you are at the wheel you are in charge of a lethal weapon.' I was forcibly reminded yet again last week when, on the way to the funeral of a very dear friend in Plymouth, I found myself in a long tail back. Later I discovered that a speeding car travelling east had crossed the central reservation causing a large lorry travelling west to over turn on the carriage way. Fortunately no one was killed.
The victim in my poem was very small and some might think the accident a trivial matter but the sounds of that accident are with me still -
The Lethal Weapon
Rabbit – I didn’t mean to kill you,
You leapt from the hedge across my path
I had no choice,
No time to brake.
Mine the hand of destiny
My car the lethal weapon.
Mine the aching heart
As, framed within the mirror
I had a fleeting vision
Of your small form
Somersaulting,
Twitching,
Still.
3 comments:
Ouch!
Nice poem though 'C'
I loved your sad little poem, especially the dwindling words towards the end. Poor rabbit... (Just a small point, it should be 'brake' rather than 'break')
I'm signed up for the Sept presentation of A215 and feeling both scared and excited.
I'm also just learning to drive and I'm very conscious of my tentative control of that 'lethal weapon'
Carenza, when I was in my twenties the same thing happened to me. It was on the A580 between Liverpool and Manchester, a very fast road which in those days was the main route to the M6. The victim was a dog. He raced from some fields and down the embankment right across my path. I was in the middle lane, cars to left and rioght of me all doing about 60 m.p.h. I couldn’t brake as there were people behind me, nor swerve into the other lanes. It was sickening. I sat at the side of the road with this gorgeous dog bleeding all over my best clothes whilst I waited for either the RSPCA or the Police to arrive. This was 1972. Though he was in pain, the little dog licked me all over and made such a fuss of me. When the police came after half an hour, they just shot him. I felt like a murderer.
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