2 Poems

I planted an apple tree in my backyard.

200 years later, it uprooted my house.

Bad apple tree! my great great great

grandchildren screamed, and they chopped

and they chopped and they chopped

the last of my life away.

They say Dave Brubeck but come on

what you really hear all the time is

Paul Desmond, saxophone. I wonder

if Dave Brubeck, piano, was annoyed

by that Paul Desmond,

saxophone. I wonder it if ever resulted

in fisticuffs. I try to imagine Dave

Brubeck’s fists, or Dave Brubeck’s hands

picking up a piano in order that he might

smite Paul Desmond. And then I try to imagine

Paul Desmond picking up a saxophone in order

to likewise or preemptively smite Dave Brubeck

and as we speak, he is doing just that! Paul Desmond

is picking up a saxophone but Paul Desmond is picking up

a saxophone in order to play Blues Rondo À La Turk. Soon he

shall be sweaty, soon Dave Brubeck will smile upon him

lovingly, with thoughts of years and notes and ivory and

gold, with a love forged of the metals and wood of such

memories, and perhaps chastened, a bit, by sweat.