Smokey

[r.magnay]

I had a phone call a couple of nights ago from an old mate who lives up the top end...Dundee beach actually, he wanted permission to use one of the poems from my book "'Course I'm Bloody Dinkum!" on Anzac day. it is a poem I wrote quite some time ago about an old POW who I knew well. His niece read this at his funeral too. I guess there is nothing too fancy about it technically, but it makes a point I think.
I may have posted it before on a previous site I think.

“SMOKEY”

© Ross Magnay 1.9.91

Every town has got one, or at least they prob’ly had,
A hero just like this one, he may even be your Dad.
But our town’s got old Smokey, a hero so they say,
And they reckon but for Smokey, there’d be less of us today.

And though his legs are weakened, and he walks inside a frame,
His heart and spirit still intact, his mind is still the same.
Though the years creep up on Smokey, on this hardened little bloke,
When ‘ere you talk to Smokey, you will always get a joke.

But Smokey wears no medals, and he makes no claim to fame,
And if he makes one hundred, he’ll still be just the same.
But I often think of Smokey, just what goes through his mind,
About the Burma railway, and the blokes he left behind.

The blokes that he came home with, the blokes so frail and sick,
That’s why I reckon Smokey, is such a good old stick.
So listen you do-gooders that knock blokes who went to war,
For we will never really know, the things they did or saw.

They went and fought for us you know, and we should really care,
That because of blokes like Smokey, we can breathe AUSTRALIAN air!

[Vic Jefferies]

Perfect Ross! That is it in a nutshell!

[Maureen K Clifford]

Spot on Ross - that's it exactly, sadly though those old 'Smokey's' have just about all drifted away.

[Vic Jefferies]

You are right Maureen,many of the old Smokeys have drifted away, but sadly they have been replaced by too many "young Smokeys."

[r.magnay]

Scanned from my book, drawing by Teresa Ramsey.

SAVE0004.jpg

[Maureen K Clifford]

WOW - Yong Teresa has talent - what an excellent pencil sketch

[r.magnay]

Yes Maureen, she is very talented...by the way she is not of Asian descent......(I think you may have meant young rather than Yong. )

[Terry]

G/day Ross,
It says it all mate - Thanks.

Terry