Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 04/04/22

Car on fire

Another Mercedes-Benz is abandoned
on Central Park West—its iconic
hood ornament was picked clean
from its midnight blue metal husk,
& its engine smoked odd vapors—

That wasn’t surprising—
people dig bling & any rich tags,
usually they are pawned off
casually to curious collecting bidders.

But the smoky engine
erupted into flames
on the UWS—no one cared,
as if the car itself
had committed
some heinous crime.

Remember,
in war-torn countries,
the most expensive cars & objects
first were set on fire—their perpetrators
sending a message to the consuming West?

But this is the West Side;
the car’s flames danced
under expensive apartment buildings
situated by the park.

Who did this? An uneasy visitor
who wanted a taste of Easy Street?
A tail-end of a riot?

Or,
did a long-time resident
needed to sabotage himself,
to begin anew,
without any known trappings—

or,
was it
just another accident?

©2022 Carrie Magness Radna All rights reserved.

Carrie Magness Radna

Carrie Magness Radna is an audiovisual cataloger at the New York Public Library, an Associate Editor for Brownstone Poets, a 2022 Pushcart nominee, a choral singer and a poet who loves travelling. Her poems have previously appeared in The Oracular Tree, Mediterranean Poetry, Muddy River Poetry Review, Poetry Super Highway, Shot Glass Journal, Vita Brevis, Home Planet News, Cajun Mutt Press, Walt’s Corner, Polarity eMagazine, The Poetic Bond (VIII-X), Alien Buddha Press, Jerry Jazz Musician, Brownstone Poets, Rye Whiskey Review and First Literary Review-East. Her poetry collections: Hurricanes never apologize (Luchador Press) was published in December 2019, and In the blue hour (Nirala Publications), was recently published in February 2021. Born in Norman, Oklahoma, she now lives with her husband in Manhattan, New York. https://carriemagnessradna.com