On A Car Accident, 12-10-2003

They seemed almost apathetic

As they rose from their seats in the car that mine smashed into

Despite their apparent fault

And my brain struggled to comprehend, as it struggles now

That I had anything to do with the previous and aforementioned.

My dog just kind of lolled her tongue and laughed at us all.

Getting out, the front totaled, their wheel bent to a lack of motion,

I wanted to ask them how the hell they dare

Destroy a man of the English word,

But when I instead said, “Are you guys all right?”

They just looked perplexed and said “Si.”

And there is something to be said for a man of English

Almost being killed by a pair of men who can’t speak it,

But that, such as it is, shall not be said tonight by me.

I am still shaking.

The doctors have gelled my brains with impeccable percocet

And my vision clouds, my poetic senses are on fire

I fear the correlation and causation of the addict’s mind

Here straining in a chair not to suffer my whiplash.

Three bottles, all orange, all tall.

Three men, rising from cars to face their own mortality.

And pieces of car all over the street. I wanted to pick them up but

Now I just sit here and make them up.

Just like a bumper car, kid, and the reward, drugs that work, offers little.

Confronting your own mortality like a savage man who chases you...

You want to run, but you want to turn and fight a little along the way,

So I do, but you gotta wonder, what’s the point in all this?

Why do we drive on, keep swerving, keep smashing,

When all for naught when it comes to communication, syncopation,

Empty men with little reason who cannot speak the language

And policemen who fill out little forms telling you

Who’s right, who’s wrong, and if things get fucked up enough

Who’s dead.