Paul J Penton – Songwriter

How the hell do you do this? I had received a snippet of instruction on this gear shifting business and now here I sit straddled over 250 cc of burbling motor. The roar of the beast controlled by my right hand, the gears by the other and somewhere in all this I’ve got to brake too. In my imagination its all ‘born to be wild ‘ and ‘keep the motors runnin’ but now just panic and fear.

So, I’ve got to pull in the clutch while my right leg kicks at some spigot out of sight. The clutch seems to weigh a hundred pounds as I twist the throttle and then let it out. The bike kangaroo hops a few feet and stalls. Embarrassment  and shame rupture my face and body.  Now this business of becoming a donkey, stepping down and kicking on the starter pedal. Meanwhile the bike wants to lean over and fall on top of my leg. This is definitely not the picture I had in imagination where I ride about unhindered, tasting a fresh breeze, letting the wind run through my hair, the power of the beast beneath my finger tips. No, this is all about co-ordination and balance – all those sporting traits that seem to have been forgotten when  my cells where dipped in the genetic pool.

Again, raise the level of the throttle let out the clutch……..

The bowsers all stand round waiting. They’re like question marks, the long snakey tubes appended to their sides as if they are that statue ‘the thinker’. The silvered tin clinks onto the concrete and he lifts the handle, the machine begins whirring and clicking in anticipation, and as gently as a reverse park he squeezes the teat, syphoning in just enough without overflow – that would be messy. His hands now have a light reek of oily petrol. Inside he pays and then returns to the task of lawn clipping.

Getting out of the car the smell of fresh mown grass greets him and sends him straight back to playing in the park  near the house he grew up in. When the big tractor was doing the rounds with the clipper, chug-a-lugging around the field collecting the clippings in a hopper and dumping it into a mulch pit.   In the garage…….

ECG’s beep and pulse in a hospital, brain activity flat, touch and go, is anything going on? Terrible decision, life support termination – maybe another 24 hours on the borderline.

Feelings punch along a narrow channel and ping and bell the machine, flippers agitatedly clickering away trying to keep that mirror out of the gap, shooting back up to the top, paddle wheels cascade, lights rip on and off and flash – darth vader voice laughing from the distance. and then the decision is made for you as the heavy rolling globe sails right between the fliipers and a car alarm of sounds emerge from the machine.

Yeah or neah. Sometimes you have to face the facts and this time the camels back is well and truly broken, one straw to many, no more ‘get out of jails’ it’s all gone to hell, have to admit that this thing has failed. Finances at borderline, future at borderline, maybe there’s better stuff over the border, maybe the green green grass of home awaits. Overseas, a long way away, waiting for my return for my rebirth but that’s a hard decision to take, no guaranatees, so borderline if it’ll make a difference. Would love to taste the honey of success just once, to remember it and live in it but it’s always so…….

The sound of the party was spilling into the street, the fireworks , arcing up over the city like agitated cat tails were long gone, the smell of  the their exploding mortars hanging in the memories of onlookers, but back in the ‘burbs’ the party was still continuing. One A.M. now. It was an ‘invite only’ party and everyone had been indulging in snags and steaks from the exhausted barbecue, and crunchy potato chips. Too many teeth had been clenched on salty mixed nuts. Now under the influence of the 6th vodka chaser or the tenth stubbie of finest Tassie ale, things were getting a little bit noisy – the neighbours were unimpressed.

A small crew were in the front room playing cards or watching rage or something similar when the door bell rang and there in a state of excessive drunkeness was the last person on the planet anybody wanted to see. Initially a gentle word of ‘not-welcome-mate’ was issued, but somewhere between the gasoline of alcohol  and the burning match of anger he forced his way through the front door and into the house. A struggle ensued with fists and bouts of swearing which mushroomed as some other folks came down the hall to check the commotion.  At this point the gate-crasher’s fist went flying through the door in anger. He should have broken it by rights, it hurt that much but it would just be a series of purple bruises in the morning. Now a clutch of screaming clawing women had made their way to the front of the house along with several of the more  burly blokes and the gatecrasher decided it was time to cut and run.

The Buddhist calm of the gathering had been interrupted by a  hammer and anvil attack from Satan and the trail of splintered destruction left behind spoke of the powers of evil, the evils of alcohol and the power of anger and rage.   The music was meant to stop around one but some claimed it went til four some til two, the truth may never be known, but somehow in the fractured reality of the next day somebody knew they’d gone too far and things needed to change…..