Sinatra, Cars, and Dinosaurs.

Human beings

have a petty little habit

of killing things

and then calling them dinosaurs.

 

Dad couldn’t get his dinosaur

out of the driveway that morning,

as hard as he tried

to get its engine to start.

“Rusty old thing,” he called it,

“Rusty old dinosaur.”

 

But I remembered

when it was young and polished,

red like blood with black,

bald feet and an underbelly of veins,

 

and it hummed to life

with the turn of a key

and the radio came in sharp

and clear to remind us

that we weren’t the only

humans left on earth.

 

Sinatra sang like he was young again.

 

The car had now suffered

too many abuses;

it choked within waking

and coughed

out each garbled splice of static

on the radio,

and I swear somewhere

I felt it aching, 

a shared shiver in our spines

jammed against one another,

bone against bone

against the torn leather interior.

 

I ached with it.

I felt my throat scratch up

with the muffled sound of Sinatra resurrected,

as my dad tried to exhume 

the victim of his negligence,

the one his drunk hands had battered and beaten

like a sad and desperate animal,

and sore, the engine finally gasped,

as if to prove my father wrong, 

as if to promise to outlive him. 

And when they found the car

it was still, somehow, alive 

and purring, 

its headlights smiling in the dark

while Sinatra crooned 

to the night 

and to my father's prehistoric ear,

crushed like a petal

and fossilized,

as though to mark the first excavation 

that began with open air

and ended with a dig. 

Author's Note

A little rough and quickly-written, still need some help polishing it up. :)

Reviews

[K.N. Lorenzen]

red like blood with black,
bald feet and an underbelly of veins,

Great!!

[Chris Atkinson]

absloutly fantastic writing, I cant wait to read more. Excellent way with words

[A. Amos]

This was deep and simply awesome read, last above lines you have nailed it my friend...

[Temerity]

Thanks, I really appreciate it. :)

[Oswald Chesterfield Cob..]

I really really like this :D great writing skills :) I so far have only published 2 poems on here already, but you can feel free to read them if you want lol :) anyways, I really love your writing and hope to read more soon

[Temerity]

Hi Blues! I'd love to read your writing, and I try to make a habit of returning the favor in regards to reviews anyway (it just might take me a while, seeing as I'm rarely on the site anymore). Anyway, thanks for your encouragement, it's greatly appreciated. :)

[Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot]

Your absolutely welcome ^*^