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| Detail from “The School of Athens” a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520) [Click image to call up all published instalments] |
The things you think about while walking around an Amazon warehouse.
From 2015 until 2018, I worked at IND1, one of the largest warehouses for the company. I was a picker, walking 10-15 miles a night picking items, scanning them and tossing them in big yellow totes, then putting them on a long conveyer to be sent toward packing or to be guided toward a trailer bound for another warehouse halfway across the country. It was monotonous.
Many times I would let my mind wander through the mods, writing notes on scraps of paper to be worked out later. We were not allowed our phones on the floor.
One night, another worker asked me what I was writing and I told him how I passed the hours. He also was a writer, working on his first novel. He asked if I would be interested in doing some editing and critiquing of a few chapters.
It was early in his idea’s development and the images were rough. I remember finishing the piece and feeling a little dirty, like there was too much sex written into the scenes. Since the chapters were set in an old jazz bar, I jokingly steered him to edit some scenes down by saying there was too much Saxophone in that jazz, it was gratuitous. That then got my brain playing.
This piece was written on a piece of scrap cardboard while walking in the stacks way out to the east side of the building, somewhere in the second half of a night shift after the rush of another Christmas season. I don’t think it came out too bad.
Gratuitous Sax
He is taking her out again tonight,
to a gritty back street club
where they gather for the jazz
The ladies there,
they all rave about his hands
as he slides
each finger down her body,
pressing keys
she never knew existed,
unlocking a throaty moan
that cuts across the dance floor,
touches her where no other
has ever dared.
They know that he’s a player,
but they want to hear some more.
The girls go weak-kneed
as he brings her to his mouth,
pressing his tongue against her reed
and blows.
She jumps with a scream
as he takes her higher,
all around the groove.
She sings,
calling to the heavens
from this little hellhole dive
until he brings her back down
to catch a breath,
yielding to his bandmates
who pick up his cue
to take it on home.
He lays down his instrument,
goes out back for a smoke,
but the ladies,
they are still waiting for his return.
They know they’ve just been played,
but they keep coming back for more.
| Copyright © 2023 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there. |
Very nice. I once went to an open mic poetry event where one of the readers used his long tongue at the end of almost every phrase and I watched a few of the women around me swoon. Jazz and sexual inuendo--great combination.
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