I was sitting on the corner, stoned
When out of the blue, my dead aunt phoned
How could this be, she rests in peace
Right beside my loving niece
I answered the phone, and my auntie said
"I know you think that I am dead"
"I'm alive"- my auntie moaned
Or- could it be that you're just- "Stoned"
I rolled over and went back to sleep,
counting red and yellow sheep.
I heard auntie say, "the sheep are real cheap."
Then I rode off in an old broken down jeep.
Maybe I needed to stop getting in the stoned zone?
Now the sheep farm I do own.
My loving niece Joan said, "be carful Charles."
I did not listen, so I am now all alone.
My jeep took over the driving today
Heard his radio sing,”hip hip hooray!”
How this happened I truly cannot say
But he snatched my keys and drove away
My grandmother knew
the exact moment I was born.
She was sitting in the passenger seat
of my grandfather’s navy blue Jeep Wrangler.
Speeding down the New Jersey turnpike,
the windows trembled against rushing air.
She closed her eyes and said,
“I just heard my baby granddaughter cry.”
Every time she tells this story,
I imagine my first guttural wail
transcending miles of houses,
trees, and pavement.
I think what a crude force even then
was my unrelenting fear,
its velocity,
its volume,
its stamina.
My father bought a Willys Jeep
When I was just a kid.
My mother took one look at it
And man, she flipped her lid.
A station wagon was the car
He’d told her he would buy.
To him, they were equivalent;
He hadn’t tried to lie.
We didn’t have it very long
But oh, I loved it so!
Its rattan seats could fold if you
Had lots of things to stow.
In emerald green, it didn’t look
Like any other car.
In terms of being cool,
That Willys Jeep sure set the bar.
Today I saw a Willys Jeep,
Bright orange, on the street
And memories came flooding back,
An unexpected treat.
My father’s long-ago mistake
(Or so I had been told)
Evokes a snippet of the past
I’m happy to behold.
In tight and busy parking lots
You can easily get perturbed
Should I back out; take the long way,
Or should I just jump the curb?
Jeeportunity!
The well-worn road around the butte
Will take ten minutes more
But a dusty two-track byway
Will save us some time -- I'm sure!
Jeeportunity!
This time the parking lot is full
‘cept a small space next to a hill
“No worries!” mumbling to no one,
“I’ll just drive it up there in Four-wheel.
Jeeportunity!
It”s time to buy a set of wheels,
Your spouse wants the blue mini-van.
There, on the end, what’s that you see?
A Rubi Wrangler! Yup, I’m a fan!
Jeeportunity!
Some cold day in my future life
I will climb the stairway to heaven,
In a golden Jeep with a mega lift
And the tires will be Thirty Sevens!
Jeeportunities!
Except in the darkest room
In it a figure would loom:
No time to cameras zoom,
Present as clean: filthy room…
Does capture like a good pen
Pimples up to painful ten,
All the smoke-stained teeth of Ben
And proves not the cock a hen…
Mirror: the Steadfast Biro
Misses out not feared terror:
Things which mortify Sarah,
Even a typing error.
Eyes which had ceased to taste sleep,
The ones, no alcohol, weep,
Pairs upset by an old jeep;
Men who don’t sow but do reap!
A failure to watch one’s weight,
A leaving of things to fate:
One who’d for casual sex wait;
Also, who shall become great!
Keeps trying to pull herself together:
Objects scatters and tries to them gather;
Hard to swallow his withdrawal from her world.
Clean-shaven head she’d cajoled for being bald
She should never forget the month of May,
When God in her life allowed Death a say.
Julius had promised her everything:
“All my envious feuding brothers Nothing”
Their world and lot shall, again, turn golden,
Although, all his companies are folding…
Alas! She, Stella, had got it all wrong,
Her enemies to break into a song.
She’ll have to hold on to memories:
In her mind a neatly filed series…
She knows they’ve coming for her long hair,
The scissors that shall attack it won’t care.
What they can’t take from her his mansion,
They had better not the topic mention.
She’s ready to make phone calls for a Jeep;
A full army that makes giants weeps!
It was noon for Lady Amanda
And in drove a Platoon Commander:
Gerald Rutherford, full Lieutenant
Many years back her Quiet Tenant...
Now Military, still Great Manners,
As though in defence of Great Banners,
The two hoisted in front of his Jeep
And a white he chose to close keep...
Key off Jeep's Ignition box, a leap:
He's had something robbing him Good Sleep
"Yes, what's it that you want, Commander?"
"Oh, thanks, Sweet Lady! Your Miranda..."
"You didn't say: Ex - Land Lady's smile."
"Oh my God! Just begun bad file!"
For five days now, it has sat
Black and gray, reflecting heat
Actually, a very nice Jeep
With expired tags, rumpled bookbags
Yet nobody has moved it from my house
For five days now
As I surmise, with my poet's eyes
Journeys of flattened grass, of dusty glass
A map discarded, a gypsy started
A young soul seeking adventure's answers
To grow into futures of unlined space
Or older hearts, chasing the chase
The remembered rush of chances to take
As a new wind erases
The years from their faces
Perhaps a journal, sketching a desert dawn
Or moon rippled seas, or fragrant rain
Calling them forward to green spun lanes
Oh, there could be hours to ride
Mountains to taste, moments to cry
(Dear Muse, have you been so obscure
that I needed a sign - the size of a Jeep
blocking my front door?)
Now I, shaken at last from lethargy
To pick up my pen, should perhaps thank them~
Before I have their car towed.
6/29/22
(true story)
From Cousin Uche profitably learnt
Jeep is not for top speed
And this clearly meant
I should another passion feed?
En route weeping for Nigerian Drivers,
Nearly all Precious Life "Deprivers".
Celebrating immunity of license
Like Eli The Ark of God and his Incense…
It can’t happen in his Beloved Brazil,
Where he did his dollars fight with zeal
And now steers a goodly jeep
While I strive not to weep.
Back to my base returned me,
Saving me what rarely is free;
A New Year’s Bag of Rice for father-in-law
In compliance with International Law
Thanks’, Oji-Egbe, for the gunshots at 12:00am 2022
Poetically, I myself was firing too!
Near the pleasure-offering joint
Was an illegal checkpoint
Legalized by police presence
And a militarily discolored jeep,
Whose size easily made the skin creep!
Also, a checkpoint proving the smell ‘Aromatic’
And off bringing romances Dramatic…
But mainly often eyeing The Heavy
And on it dropping Forbidden Levy
A doomed-to-be - seized ‘Their Gravy…
I think an invitation to watch a role
Happily parading a yawning hole:
Some Likely extra dosing on Tramadol
For shows of little self-control:
Their jeep on fuel-wasting patrol
With their ever assured enough petrol…
A checkpoint of really a kind
We don’t know who can its demons bind.
Riding the rhythms of rolling wheels
Driving rusty rock desert miles
Purring pistons pumping power
To my mottled muddy jade jeep
A symphony sprung in my head
Dawning with dainty din of drums
Paving a path for piccolos
And rich rumblings of black bassoons.
Strings sent soaring counterpoint smoke
Playing with a glory sublime
In flawless metronomic time
Mozart tears of joy would have shed.
Music was a top choice grand cru
But when I had to stop for gas
And gulp soothing bubbly soda
My sweet symphony flew away.
Fermented fine without any skills
My heady brew I can't renew.
Shaye pulled up to the beach in a new red hot jeep.
There was no top, which is so much like her
We piled in and took a ride, singing our lungs out
It was a ride to remember as we were not wearing tops.
Our bras are pretty, Shaye had argued. So, we went along.
There was a lot of honking. And gawking.
One guy nearly fell out of his truck.
We were laughing so hard; the seat was wet.
Let’s drive to school this way, Patty suggested.
With Patty you must be careful, because she never stops
Once started, bam, she is like a fire that just drank kerosene.
A policeman stopped us. Shaye’s uncle. He was not pleased.
Apparently, we were also traveling about fifty-five in a twenty.
Details like this are so boring to four hot girls, enjoying their
young, sexy sixteen-year old bodies.
The last time I saw this red hot jeep Shaye’s grandma was driving it.
Old folks forget where they parked their Jeep
They wander around almost falling asleep
Till there's just one car
That's our car by gar
But still push the button to hear our Jeep beep!
What an american jeep
The eye-catching size of the jeep
Made my skin creep
And at top speed by heart leap!
A quite intact tank oil wouldn’t from it seep
And glasses one couldn’t through them peep ;
Not a fault wearing such as make drivers weep
And for days deserted by needful sleep.
Always further likeable with a beep,
Its bodyweight that of dense gravels, a heap!
Yep, an automobile God beside Himself could keep.
What an American je...eep!
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