A Mangaweka Road Song

 

No place more I’d like to bring you than
this one-pub town
approached in low gear down
the gorges through the hills.

Now they’ve built the by-pass
the drinkers left are locals
& odd commercial travellers.
Quiet afternoons like this you hear the falls.

On the Post Office corner
a blue flag floats. I bought
a hot meat pie at the store
a new harmonica.

A public bar drinker
tells me what I want to hear.
I play for him later
songs on my harmonica.

We know each other now
I buy my round of beers,
I catch up on the news
in small town public bars.

They ask me why I travel
& never settle down
I lose two games of pool
& hitchhike out of town.

A Mangaweka Road Song: from Doubtless: New and Selected Poems (Craig Potton Publishing, 2008), Sam Hunt 2008, used by permission of the author. Recording from the Waiata New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive 1974.

Sam Hunt is a rare commodity in New Zealand: a ham actor playing to the gallery and willing to go out on a limb; he’s also a ...

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