Chicken Run

Chicken Run.

It was like that classic car duel

in ‘Rebel Without a Cause’

where two cars race towards a cliff

and the driver who jumps out first

is the chicken.

I was in my Holden Cruize,

he in his yellow Monaro

and he wasn’t going to let me in his lane.

This went on for half a mile.

So when we were at the intersection,

I looked across, gave him

the ‘You’re on, buddy’ sign

and soon as the lights turned.

I gunned the engine,

shot across as if flung by a catapult

my batman black against his banana yellow

burning rubber, billowing smoke,

cars horns beeping, a voice yelling,

HOOOOOON !!

which was kinda funny considering my age

but I made the turn I wanted

got my sausage sizzle and this poem.

I don’t know what got onto me.

It was my James Dean moment.

Drive-Ins

I passed the old Drive-In, the one we used to go to when I was a kid, that time we saw ‘Giant’, for instance, on the giant tilted screen, and I wanted to be cool and edgy as James Dean, and how after the movie when we were driving home around midnight, we heard on he radio that a plane had just fallen from the sky during a snowstorm over a corn field in Iowa and a chill filled our car the day the music died.

 

which movie star did you want to be like when you were a kid?

did you watch movies at drive-ins with your folks? do you remember any particular film?

what were you doing when you heard about the deaths of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens?