Christopher Haywood Poet Narrative

Notes About The Poem

This expression is about a man's sudden panic upon reading a false report about a fatal car accident involving his loved ones, and ending.

Phantom Current

The newsprint bleeds in steady ink, 
A current pulling past the brink.
He reads the words, and in his chest, 
A sudden torrent breaks its rest— 
A river, cold and black and wide, 
Begins to churn its heavy tide. 
It floods his veins, a rushing roar 
Of rushing waves that smash the shore, 
Drowning the room, the morning light, 
In deep, unstoppable, darkness of fright.
The column speaks of shattered glass, 
Of broken steel upon the grass, 
A midnight road, a fatal strike, 
Two lives swept downward, storm-like.
It names his girl, it names his face, 
Lost in that crushed and quiet place, 
Struck by a drifting, drunken hand—
Another tragedy to the land. 

The river in his mind flows deep, 
A mournful and long suffocating sweep, 
Bearing the weight of final breath,
The icy certainty of the end and death. 
He feels the phantom water rise, 
And presses hands against his eyes, 
Believing every line he sees, 
Sunk in the current, on his knees.
But then the roaring water clears. 
The banks recede; away go fears. 
A sudden sun breaks through the haze, 
And rewinds all the violent days. 
The ink was wrong; the truth is spun— 
No twisted steel, no damage done. 
The driver breathed a sober air, 
No alcohol was gathered there, 
And on that road, no shadows fell, 
Both he and she are safe and well. 

The rushing river slows its pace, 
A quiet stream now takes its place, 
As peace returns, a gentle gleam, 
To wash away the waking dream.

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