Poetry
Dave Morrison: Accident
The magic, the exhilaration is in
the shock of the transition: one
moment all the elements of your
small universe are in proper
order, and then in the time it takes
to cough, or snap your fingers or
say ‘Jack Robinson’, in that tick of
the second hand it’s a whole new
world filled with almost unbearable
excitement and immediate peril -
Hailed as 'A hearty weed in the garden of American poetry,' Dave Morrison's poems have been published in literary magazines and anthologies, and featured on Writer’s Almanac and Take Heart. His ninth collection of poetry, Stethoscope will be published in January 2014.
the wheels and the road are no longer
speaking to each other, the language
of start/stop/left/right is no longer
in use, your body, like a well-trained
fireman has leapt into action by
tensing every muscle and
spraying the inside of your chest with
adrenaline. What was once a familiar
landscape of vertical trees and telephone
poles, a grid of asphalt streets, sensibly
placed houses; these have been replaced with
this excruciatingly beautiful wide ribbon
that wraps around your windows, every
color in the rainbow going sideways like
the twirling dress of a gypsy dancer, it’s
an amusement ride come to riotous life,
this tops-eye view of your new world;
what was once a predictable automobile
is now a centrifuge, a roulette wheel, a
spinning coin, and in those hour-long
seconds you wonder what will bring
this ride to an end - pole, tree, truck,
stone, maybe a giant child’s hand?
All you know is that it won’t end well,
it can’t end well, so you take the
practical approach; enjoy the ride,
whoop and wave your hat like a
bronc buster, look for the blurred
faces of your family and friends
while the calliope pipes its lusty
jubilant song and your wooden
stallion rises into the
neon-blasted night.
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