Saturday, December 28, 2013

Three Poems by Weldon Sandusky


EXXON/MOBIL
©
 
2013
 
I worked twenty years
At night, none the less.
A gas station.
A niteman. A cashier.
Coffee, Cigarettes,
Drive-offs, robbery.
Sleet, ice and snow.
I loved it. Free to laugh.
Free to cry. I could jump up and down.
I could yell.
Morning would roll around
My relief would show.
Hello!
I’d go.
Good-bye.
Coming again. Coming Again.
With managers who were thieves
And people all in a hurry.
“I can’t start my car. Would you call me a cab?”
Thank you, Come Again.
“I’ve lost my keys. Call the police!”
Thank you, Come Again
A neon world
Red, White and Blue.
A dark place
The price sticking high in the night.
Years flew by
When 11:00 AM one day
HEART ATTACK!
Then a card saying:
Thank you.
Get well. Come again.
Exxon/Mobil.


 
 
 
 
1515 13th Street
 
When my father died
We moved to the Hill Country.
And when my aunt died
We moved to Lubbock.
Blue Northern from the Panhandle
Blinding dust storms out of the West.
My mother’s other sister
Was our keeper and provider and we
Were not unlike prisoners.
Me in high school.
My mother sick in bed.
The house was a two-story red brick
Rooming house with a Church of Christ
Behind and a funeral home cater-corner.
My aunt kept her deceased husband’s
Bible in a closet that like a refrigerator
Gave me a place to go
And look as though
There’d be something to see
Or someone I could maybe talk to.
 
 
 
JOHNSON CHEVROLET
©
2013
 
Desperation leads me to
A new car make-ready. My wife
Sells them. I prep them.
Careful to vacuum, shine and chamois.
I’m in the basement.
The car dealership above.
Used Cars is across the street.
I deliver the cars with a fresh
Paper floor mat.
Courteous and proper.
Failure has greeted me
Like an cold friend
Hand outstretched and A Big Smile.
Divorce turns on a pinhead.
I sip coffee in the café
And try to appear to be a
College Graduate hopelessly empty
And wishful, however.
People laugh behind my back.
I come to suspect
They “test drive” my wife
Then sadistically bring the car in
For a good vacuum and a
Run through the car wash.
One day I find a spot
On the rear seat
And begin to whimper then cry.
I go home
And get the bus
To psychiatric emergency
At the County Hospital.
 
 
 
Weldon graduated from Texas Tech University in 1968-a B.A. in English. He then got an M.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin and a law degree (J.D. l975) from the same school. Divorce followed as did commitment to , first, the private psychiatric hospital, Timberlawn, in Dallas, and , later, the State Mental Asylum in Terrell , Texas. Mr. Sandusky petitioned for habeas corpus claiming a conspiracy to unlawfully commit him existed in violation of his constitutional rights.  Upon release, Weldon got a job at Exxon/Mobil where he worked twenty years as a cashier-nightman. During August, 2005he underwent open heart surgery at St. Paul’s Hospital in Dallas and have since been declared totally disabled. He has coronary heart disease.

3 comments:

  1. This is the first time I have read work by Weldon Sandusky.

    I look forward to reading him again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like this guy. Honest and shoots from the hip. Reminds me of Bukowski. A wonder that the M.A. in English did not ruin him as a poet :)

    ReplyDelete