Ramshackle Review

Robert Klein Engler:
Three Poems


.SOMETHING ABOUT CUPID.

Good shot! Your aim is equal to your strike.
Turn. Fly away! Jut wait, there'll come a day,
my boy, when you see a silken bed you like.
Then what? I bet your wings get in the way.


.LEADING A LIFE OF THEORY.

The fuckin' L runs late, so I am late.
A homeless guy then greets me at the stairs,
his hand held out. I never take the bait.
Some emo brats go through the doors in pairs.

Last night the garbage laid in frozen piles,
the union called a strike. It's been a week
since they rolled out a truck. The turnstile's
broke. This transit thing's almost antique.

My girlfriend says there's drugs at school.
The sales tax is now past 10 percent.
My friend got fired. She told a joke. The fool.
Milk's high. Why I can hardly pay the rent.

Still, I can't decide: Adopt a Chinese kid,
or get a compost bin without a lid.



.JELLO.

You need flour and olive oil for a roux.
Got 'em. I'm cooking again. Gumbo.
At the dessert aisle I stop. Who knew?
Jello. Damn! His favorite. I know, let go.





Robert Klein Engler lives in Des Plaines, Illinois and sometimes New Orleans. Many of Robert’s poems and stories are set in the Crescent City. His long poem, The Accomplishment of Metaphor and the Necessity of Suffering, set partially in New Orleans, is published by Headwaters Press, Medusa, New York, 2004. He has received an Illinois Arts Council award for his "Three Poems for Kabbalah."