Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to write a poem about the ginormous tan station wagon I drove in high school, nicknamed "the Battlewagon," because it was a tank--six seats, made by union labor in the United States out of solid steel with terrible gas mileage (about eight miles to the gallon in town), alignment problems, and a monster V-8 engine prone to overheating--in Oklahoma, where it gets very hot in the summer.

It looked something like this:
http://www.chooseyouritem.com/classi...00/111946.html

only more battered.

Quincy

[This message has been edited by Quincy Lehr (edited July 25, 2006).]

Oh dear, oh dear, poor Quincy dear,
there's little to his life, I fear -
he has no brand new vintage car,
and lack of ego seems to bar
his giving us the finger - so -
this wagon's all he's got to show:
a massive, ancient Chevrolet
that begs an Okie rondelet.

But as I write of Quincy's plight
(and hope I've read his motives right),
I'll reassure him I would simper
soothing ditties if he'd whimper
of an injured hand or limb -
I have no bone to pick with him -
it doesn't rankle me that he
is soon en route to Trinity.




[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited July 25, 2006).]

The parts were mostly bought in, like
its Chrysler Motors battery--
so proving imitation's the
sincerest form of flattery.

My folks had a wagon,
we rode in the back;
the exhaust pipe was draggin',
the steering was slack.
Unbelted, we'd lurch
as the worn brakes would jerk us,
debarking at church
like clowns at a circus.

Michael--

Yep, you got the motives right.
I'd say more, but it's late at night.


David--

The car was huge and made an awful racket--
But hey, I'm in a fairly low tax bracket.

Rose--

The car croaked; it was crushed in a junkyard
And is mere memory. My mother trashed it
When the engine ended its efforts at turning
Or firing (or fuck-all). Its fate was grim,
But it lived a good life, its legacy assured.



[This message has been edited by Quincy Lehr (edited July 25, 2006).]

Now, which way is quicker to get to Valhalla--
By way of saloon or of Vlad the Impala?

Quincy


The Battle Wagon

Emblazon your bumpers
scraped from the battles
with Caddies and Pontiacs,
pride of the camino.
Oh shockless shimmier
whose shameless exhaust
killed a cadre
of breathless codgers,
we don our hauberks
and bellow our hails
to your clunking transmission
and clogged exhaust.
Our wish is so wanton--
we are like maidens:
Would that your whaleness
were with us yet!

Tried to mark it off in Beo-lines, but Erato wouldn't let me.

Fun!

Best

Lance Levens




[This message has been edited by Lance Levens (edited July 29, 2006).]

(Oh dear Quincy. Sorry. I wrote about my parents' Standard Nine. A British colonial note.)

An old Standard Nine
with its proud Union Jack
and us kids in the back
fighting over which line
measured your half and mine;
locked windows half open
for fear we'd be broken--
a two-door design.
Are we there yet? we'd whine.
(If a bee flew inside
my father would steer
away from it, fear
drove him near suicide.
Bereft of all pride
or concern if we died.)
For the rest he would drive
very slowly and say
that most drivers today
drove too fast. He'd derive
much joy when a sign
on a hilltop said "View".
If the weather was fine
we got out and said "My!"
but we just drove on by
when no sign marked a scene.
Sight unseen, though we'd been
to the unseen sight too.




[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 30, 2006).]

It was not Vlad Impala, Julie. No, it was far worse.
Though tan, that station wagon could have doubled as a hearse.
You could have crammed a full-size coffin in the Chevy's back--
Though there was the small matter of a teetering, noisome stack
Of empty packs of cigarettes and my viola bow,
Old English papers, a mannequin (I'll bet you'd like to know!),
Cassette tapes and some other crap I can't, right now, recall.
But cars made in the Seventies accommodated all
The trash you didn't throw away or never quite returned--
It almost made up for the gas the Battlewagon burned.

And Lance, I fear a funeral dirge is quite beyond my reach
In the middle of the night. Besides, the keening screech
Came not from wailing widows but deterioriating brakes
(A common enough affliction in GMs of antique makes).

Janet--like the sentiment; the images are fine.
But I'm American--so what the fuck's a Standard Nine?

Quincy, it's so far back in history
that its provenance is a mystery.
It was heavy and grey and scraped the gravel
on country roads where we used to travel.
It weighed a ton but was rather small.
On New Zealand hills it was apt to stall.
It was solid British industrial power
and it saved us all in our darkest hour;)

Boy Wails for Green Buick (71 LeSabre)

She threw a rod,
Rolled to a stop,
Lost to God
And mountaintop.

She threw a rod
And never looked back,
Her deep green bod
In the tamarack.

She threw a rod.
A small boy cried.
One crack—how odd—
And our car has died?

She threw a rod
On Route 22—
No prayer, no prod,
No hullabaloo.

O devil mechanics
With evil prices!
Why couldn't you fix
Her up with vises?

Terese

PS. Cursory verse on the Chevy:

If Impalas resemble
The photo you gave,
My son would tremble
At the site of her grave.

Not I, not I!
No beige for me.
Perhaps that's why
You ate the key.