#ZeroAccidents : ROAD SAFETY POEMS

          ROAD SAFETY POEMS

The chapter contains a poetry collection written by the author on road safety. The collection includes lyrical poems and folk poems that sound like war poems and create a resonating effect with their messages, and could also be sung in different programs on road safety. 

Poem 1--  

                      O DRIVER ! O DRIVER !

O driver ! O driver !
Slow up !! Slow up !!

Look, there on your sides,
Roll the bodies maim'd,
Dismembered, dead.
Look behind,
An endless trail of blood,

All warm and thick,

Does sweep away the life
Of humanity.

O driver,

Do brake your savage wheels
Of precocity !

O driver ! O driver !

Slow up !! Slow up !!
Look ahead,
There mill about a shaken lot
Depressed, unfed
In quest of their daily bread.

They know not rules,
They know not roads,

They carry loads of worries, 

In angst and agitation;

They are blinded by want of facts

And direction...

O driver ! O driver !
Slow up !! Slow up !!
Do mind the directionless crowd
And, over there, their home,

Their hungry children -- 
Their life and soul --

In their little world.
Certain of their getting home,
The children play with merriment,

Sure of their toffees and toys

And their daily nourishment...

O driver ! O driver !
There lies their destiny

And destination 
A little over the strip,
Yet dread do I your fits, 

And slips between the cup and the lip !!!

                                                      -- N P SAMAL 

Poem 2--

                         WISE UP, O DRIVER !

Wise up, o driver ! See how your

mad impulse
Has set on road the vehicle of death
that fast rolls.
Do heed the alarms the past rings, 
much in dread,
Of gory fact that has ravaged the
human breed.

Vehicles are many and chaoticly
mobile,
The road but one, with them runs 
your vehicle.
Your craze for speed is by each 
norm insane,
The spell of haste is bound for
fated bane.
The road that lies ahead ain't bare
or straight,
Or not a race course for your
daring trait.
The right that's yours is that all
do possess,
On self-restraint and rules does rest
your success.
The vehicle own may you, but road
you don't,
Licence for all to drive limits 
your wont.
There's danger in your arbitrary
run;
To the mouth of death steers your
racing fun.
The whim of yours decides your
fate alone,
To save from misfortune, there
is none.
Yet, death ain't punishment you
get and vanish,
But a penance for your kindred
you unleash.
Far more inhumanly is your 
'sin of death',
For a painful hell that for them
you bequeath...

Wise up, o driver, wise up !
Beware !
The stalking death will catch you 
sudden,
The wrath of God will dump you
to perdition,
Forever, you shall suffer in

damnation !

                                                       -- N P SAMAL 

Poem 3--

                       THE VEHICLE OF FATE

The wheels don't know whither 

Will roll on they;

They follow as the steering 
Does show them way;
The motor propels the vehicle,
Ahead, and ahead, 

In agreement with acceleration 
Well-nick, well-stead;

The clutch, the accelerator,
The gear, the brake,
Do work in tandem no breach,
No mistake;
And the motion of the vehicle 

Is tied to the whim
The driver gets, of a victor

Or of a victim:
Together they move and carry
The fortune and the fate
Of the traffic syndicate.

The wheels don't burst,

Nor do the paddles betray,

The built-in whole is too safe to
Run astray;
Yet, again and again, again and again, 

The vehicle crashes --
It hurtles, collides, bumps, and
Into dust smashes...

The villain ain't 

The out-of-control vehicle,

But the one that's inside,

Behind the wheel;
The hypnotised man dreads not, 

Minds not the hooter to retreat,

And fateful accidents unscathed repeat...

The 'van of growth', this vehicle,
Has gone berserk;
On life and property, it's wrecking havoc.

The vehicle is moving like crazy,

But the drugger is dreaming,

And fast into the mouth of hell,
The vehicle is slipping.
Uncatchable is its speed, 

Its drive unstoppable,
And the fatal course does run

Undaunted, unalterable.

Driving drunk, driving reckless, 

Showing-off, over-speeding,
Over-taking, fatigue driving, 
Driving aggressive, wrong-way driving:

The eight bloody tentacles 

Of the road-way octopus

Have closed around the neck

Of the modern homos.
Yet the doomed vehicle is running,

Away and away, 

With the future, and fate,

Of the planet's human caliphate...

  

                                                        -- N P SAMAL