Mortality - a poem

Mortality - a poem

So I teach some lovely mentally and/or physically disabled folks a creative writing class on Thursdays.  Today the assignment was to write something that starts "I could have died…"  I wrote a poem!  Then I gave myself a gold star and a pat on the back.
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Mortality – A Poem

I could have died in a car crash

In 1993

On the Coquihalla highway

My bestest friends and me

Our trailer was fishtailing

Though the road was bare that day

The cop who stopped us said he’d seen

2 die there yesterday

He wasn’t mad, he was just scared

No ticket did he give

“just slow the hell down next time,

if you dummies want to live”

I could have died when I was five

And hanging from a tree

I could have died when I was nine

A hatchet in my knee

I could have died last summer

The thought still makes me shiver

My leg got wrapped around a rope

While tubing down the river

I could have had a heart attack,

or massive stroke this morning,

one day I might just smell some toast

then drop dead without warning

I just might die next Thursday,

I just might die tonight,

Some have said I should be dead

The way I live my life

But still I go on breathing

Through flu and common cold

the great reward for living long

Is getting ugly, weak and old

Though sometimes I feel lousy

Sometimes my life I curse

I have to say, I’m alive today
and the alternative seems worse

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Wes Borg is a Canadian comedian, playwright and musician from Edmonton, best known as a member of the comedy troupe Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. Borg now resides in Victoria, British Columbia.  You can hear more of his hilarity by buying his album on CDBaby or iTunes