(…this life)
This poem originally shared its title with a film that was released in the same year that I conceived it – 2009 I think – but pays no homage to the film, which was called “The Road”. This is because I hadn’t heard of of the film at the time that I conceived the poem [and haven’t yet seen it]. Whilst it may hold a parallel theme, it is nonetheless about the road we travel through life, both literally and figuratively.
Actually, it was originally called “Hog of the Road”, because that is where I was most regularly observing the particular kind of human behaviour that I found most got under my skin; and which I know I had, from time to time in my life, exhibited myself!
It is primarily about driving and road hogs (as they used to be called), although it casts shadows over all areas of human life, but the strong analogy is with the effect of headstrong and aggressive people/drivers, who care not for other people/road users, only for their own goals, the rush of adrenalin caused by careless ambition; with the impatience, the arrogance, the selfish greed, the ‘me’ ‘me’ ‘me’… Only trouble is, that behind the wheel of that lethal weapon, a motor car, this personality type can become an extreme danger to others.
It uses a sort of ‘close up and personal’ perspective to relate what is effectively a monologue, a commentary by an imagined driver, who has been fatally ‘influenced’ by just such a road hog, who in turn has driven off without noticing, or who has run away in blind ambition or fear, or simply failed to notice the fatal damage they had caused.
There is also an analogy with bullies: those of us, whose emotional baggage leaves us full of anger and resentment, which blinds a decent vision of humanity and the needs and rights of others.
An edgy moral tale, in other words…
(Read the Poem)
PoetJanstie
My Poetry Library 