Billy The Car

I had a friend called Billy who thought he was a car,

He would growl like an engine, screech like a tyre;

Clueless in the classroom and always lost at tag

Yet in his mind he raced us through the chequered flag.

Corridors were roads through which he sped and spat;

Sometimes he’d stop, look at his shoe and say, “damn, flat!”

And Billy wasn’t in the gang because of how things are:

Boys like bold conformity – and Billy was a car.

The gang’s next dare: a fridge to be looted.

Listening in excitement as the plan was mooted,

Climbing the pipes where plugs were routed,

We stared as Jack

crashed down,

electrocuted.

While the fridge choked for want of power

We melted, a puddle of voiceless terror;

But Billy switched on and with acceleration

Jump-started Jack with artificial respiration.

“Billy’s calm actions are an example to us all”,

Said the Head in assembly in front of the school.

Billy was grateful for the warm applause

And the joke he’d generated stalled.

Today I saw Billy on a platform without a car,

I asked him how he’d managed to get this far;

He smiled and said something about needing esteem,

About testing yourself and tasting your dream

but stopped heart had taught him life’s more than play

So he left his car in a lay-by for the police to tow away.

And the proverb in this poem is that true self-definition

Is fired by experience of real life – and not a fuel ignition.

1992