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 13^th 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.