Love Poem: My Crash With Life
Tony Bush Avatar
Written by: Tony Bush

My Crash With Life

Belching behemoth, smoking crazy dragon 
ran amok, bore down a scream in slowest motion 
through the side-window frame. 
Lunatic bulk filled my vision, 
inlaid with chrome teeth, 
huge black melting tyres... 
and some bearded midget trapped fearful, 
already shell-shocked white, 
under toasted glass. 
Time...stopped. 
An instant. 
Then impact exploded a Krakatoa roar, 
a spin, 
a dizzying waltzer fandango; 
destruction bit a crunch, 
the genocide of metal 
wrought by metal.

I knew I was dead.

Stars and black tar nausea 
flatlined in my head. 
The world blew out like a candle. 
Oh, my children, then seen, 
faces tortured, twisted, 
screaming "Dad! Dad!" 
Lightbulb filaments and shatterproof 
tears, flooded their grieving eyes. 
In a sea of brake fluid and gasoline, 
I reached for them, shouting "Hold me! 
Hold me! Don't let me go without a kiss!" 
And my hold went, my fingernails torn out 
as the current ripped me asunder. 

Later (how long?) 
a ghost draped in a moth eaten blanket, 
sat beside the surreal scrap heap 
of wreckage and despair, 
winking on and off in 
the blue and red siren flash.

I knew I wasn't dead. 

Came the tears.

I wished that I was.