ON THE SCRAPHEAP.

Here they lie, abandoned, rusted,

Who for years were prised and trusted,

When dignified, sleek and proud

They purred the highways, singing loud....

Their owner's favourite toy.

No decent burial have these,

No graveyard graced with weeping trees.

Piled up upon a common plot

To moulder slowly is their lot

Who once gave so much joy.



Empty frames where windows stood,

No engine under buckled hood.

Their naked rims now un-a-tyred,

Sink in the wet ground, clogged and mired,

Their carriage all unsprung.

There in a cab where children sat

A thin and mangy dump-bred cat,

Having nothing else to live in

Is grateful for the shelter given

There to breed her young.



In this cemetery they endure

A shameful,lowly death, obscure.

Their crusted shells bear no relation

To what was once fresh innovation,

A marvel of design.

A glimpse of chrome and paint displays

The glory of more stylish days

Before their final ending dawned.

Now they on wasteland....cold, unmourned,

Inelegant...decline.



On rest inviolate can't presume

As ghoulish looters rob their tomb.

For cars whose lives are two-thirds through

They take the parts they think will do

For some cheap renovation.

In this necropolis of shame

These wrecks are cars still but in name.

Exposure to all rain and storms

Yet further scars their metal forms

And hastens devastation.



Former champions of the road

Alongside humble vans corrode.

All snobbery and statis ended

When together they descended

To such a vulgar state.

Wide-mouthed holes, unsightly, gape

In metal sides bent out of shape.

As the days and months elapse

Seat vinyl rots and strutts collapse;

Time leaves them to their fate.






Author's Notes/Comments: 

This poem was written after I had accompanied my husband to the car dump to get some bits to fix our old banger.

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Karyn Indursky's picture

I enjoyed reading this poem because it came alive for me. The way you described the cars made them have their own lives and showed how little people care when it's not the latest model or takes too much work or they find something "better." It was very thought out and inspiring. Thank you very much for sharing this poem with me.

saiom's picture

twould not be a junkyard
.. if it were not carred



 

 

onelilartist's picture

Eunice, this is absolutely marvelous. Your rhythm and rhyme never cease to amaze me. I love your page and look nearly every day to see if there is something new. Good job.
Jessica