Poem for the Australian General Election: "The Track Less Thrashed" by Alain Frost

Two tracks leading nowhere in the bush

Miles from anywhere, I rolled the window

Down and had a look up the first one, 

Considered the position briefly and 

Said I preferred the other one. My father

Looked up from his form guide and asked me why, 

I said because it's not this one. You talk

To him, mother, he said. I can't deal

With him, the boy's a bloody idiot.

There's no need for language said my mother. 

While the matter was discussed I climbed

A very large redgum out over the river

And in a sense I never quite came down. 

The great thing about being up a tree

Is that you're not going along a track. 

 by Alain Frost

Don't look for this poet on Wikipedia because I suspect it is one of the many parodic (is that a word? If not, I just coined it) aliases of the humourist, John Clarke, New Zealand-born, but resident in Australia for several decades now.

This poem was originally published in The Even More Complete Book of Australian Verse.