Engineering

Some September I remember you peering

Into my chemical textbook, but you had already succumbed

To your poetry people, and continuously reeked

Of stale coffee and sex musk.

Walnut Trail apartment complex needed

An artist, I suppose.  So, Georgia O’Keefe

(in all her vagina-bloom glory) traveled

From your cramped Eldridge Hall to join my Elvis

Hip-swinging clock on the wall.

Verse is not logical and safe

Like my sacred books of algebraic equations and formulaic lists.

You argued – you found ART within the urine-colored

Pages of Chemical Engineering 101.

Enjoy your magical realism –

The scratchy dirt-hued carpet remains, and O’Keefe still hangs.

While Elvis ticks off seconds, I’m taking my texts literally only to find

One cold-foiled sandwich when

There should’ve been two.

Septic

When they created the crater in the backyard – Mom and Dad went

Inside – safely put away until the job was done, but I was ten.

Barefoot, I climbed to the edge of the stench-abyss and spied

On the methane men.

The first dirt clod crumbled too quickly in my hands, but the second one

Taken from yesterday’s stash on the putrid precipice, found its target.

PVC pipe is no match for my maneuverability and finesse.

They say the sewage smell will vanish once they finish the tank connection –

Whatever that means.  The stinky men evacuate our driveway in their mucky trucks,

Leaving me the keeper of all earthen bombs.

Wind Bagging

I sense disappointment today extruded from the black

Case holding the ever/over-bearing horn.

Something better in the performance you want?

Something as sensual as your beloved jazz saxophone?

No – I play trombone.

I can’t get squeaky/squawky – all helium delirious as your notes protest.

Chord progression talk no longer flows through the brandy decanter

Sitting on the slightly 60s mod glass dinner/slab table – I gave up on that

To pursue the slide and my stride evolved into something derived of my own song.

Try again old man.

Make me embrace Charlie Parker.

Make me faint from Coltrane.

I play trombone.