A hard-yet-easy poetry prompt for this Wednesday by Robert Brewer for Poetic Asides. It’s the hard things that happen to us that lend themselves most easily to poetry, not necessarily to writing good poetry but just writing it period.
“…write a poem about something you’ve been through. For instance, you may have been through a divorce, a car wreck, bankruptcy, detention, or the flu. Please make the something you’ve been through the title of your poem and go from there.”
So I did.
“Falling Down the Highway”
Tires hum on the blacktop
as lights in darkened buildings flash by
and overhead the giant sign warns
of the impending steep hill
we crest the unknown and fall
down the slope towards the cars all lined
up before the round green light
way down at the bottom where a street
crosses the highway we’re on
lights flash red one after one
like dominoes going down and Normand brakes
we accelerate down against the seatbelts
but they pull back pull back pull back pull
we kiss the backs of the seats snugly
as we stop centimetres short of the car ahead
one two…I release my breath and continue
writing in my head only it’s not over
the shock of contact stops time
my left arm reaches up to cradle my once-
damaged neck in time for another
the shock of contact stops thoughts
I stare out the windshield whole
cause of the seatbelt and see a white
car flash past on the shoulder.
