Near-Life Experience

Yesterday I died. Stupid car accident.

I was driving home late in the tired night,

And all of a sudden lurches this...rodent.

– Both he and I saw the Tunnel, and the Light.

The apple tree around which my Volvo coiled

Stood its ground and sent me spinning in the dark,

My flight the headlights like fireworks tailed,

Glass and metal etching my body like birthmarks.

Pronounced rightfully dead on the tragic scene

I was sent to join the other daily, cold sleepers.

Next morning all I know was the scalpel biting my skin

Pulled me out of death a bit bonkers.

Then I did what everybody would have done:

I fled. I fled to catch up with my life –

I ran to rejoice with my parents and my wife,

I wanted to hug her and tell her I was ready for a son.

I found her in bed with my dad.

My mum had drained all my accounts.

Overnight I lost everything I had.

All my friends' numbers lead to busy sounds.

So I did what you'd do were you in my shoes:

My favourite clothes on my back I hit the road,

drove all the way down until no more could I cruise –

There the only thing left to do was to carouse,

There doze, there shag, there brag, there drowse

Until my complexion became that of a toad.

The entire continent I strutted like a bohemian

In a comatose state, half-baked in dreams,

For months, until a doctor said my absinthian

Ways would my life in the coming week claim.

All I did was on the whole very simple:

I went back to my house and burnt it to rubble –

Cooking the two cuckoos in the process – bled my mum white –

Then I drove to the cliffs of C__ overlooking the ocean,

Had my last sandwich, took the last picture of the last ray of light,

Then toppled all this, the car and me down to oblivion.