The Cars

This is where they bring the cars. The ones from accidents. The ones from crime scenes. The ones with holes in the windshield where a head crashed through. The ones where little bits of blood and bone, sometimes teeth can be picked out of the carpet. Shooting victims. It’s hard to tell the difference in the aftermath. Blood looks the same regardless of how it got there.

The cars stand like twisted metal skeletons. Proud. Broken headlights. Their faces punched in. Like a prizefighter with a trophy hoisted over his head and showing off his sweaty black eye after a gig. No regard for the other fighter laying on the floor.

Their mirrors sparkle under the sun. Shattered and cracked but somehow managed to keep themselves together.

A sullen seat belt gone unused. Mud Flaps that say, “Back Off!” A child safety seat. A cherry and a set of black fuzzy dice hang from the mirror. Liquor bottles and spilled ashtrays. Bullet holes with numbers next to them.

Walking through the corridor of twisted metal. A graveyard of fiberglass and aluminum shells. They wait patiently for the crane to lift them up, high above the others, and compress them into small, usable cubes to be melted down. Like souls waiting to be recycled they wait for their turn to forget their previous incarnations.

Reviews

[W. Barrett Munn]

I often run into this same descriptive quagmire. Everything you observe and pass along in this poem is interesting but lacks the emotional punch of first person, in which most lyric poems are written.

To get an idea of what I am trying to get across you might find “Sunflower Sutra” by Alan Ginsberg on the internet and see how he used description as imagery in the first person.

[Ranger Kessel]

Thanks I normally write first person. I dont know why I didnt here. Thanks fir your words

[John the Baptist]

Well, that's the way it goes for unfortunate cars. Pretty sobering. Come to think of it, unfortunate people often end up looking the same way.

[W. Barrett Munn]

Btw, my own poem just put up suffers in the same way. Mine just lacks any emotional tug. That is due to a confused point of view. Good luck to us both. :-)

[Ranger Kessel]

I will check it out. Thanks fir read and review

[Fabian G. Franklin]

I like this. All the cars waiting at the crusher for a chance at rebirth and redemption. I wonder if they all want to come back as Ferraris and Jaguars or there's a mini-van hopeful in there waiting for a soccer mom. Great write. I enjoyed the read.

[Ranger Kessel]

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to review