3 Poems by Net Poet Society poet John Milkereit

  

John Milkereit is a creative thinker and citizen of the world. He began writing poetry after taking a seminar on the poetry of Billy Collins in 2005 at his local church. His poems have appeared in Harbinger Asylum, Swirl, Poetry Revolt, the Texas Poetry Calendar and has been a juried poet at the Houston Poetry Fest, and the Austin International Poetry Festival. He also recorded several of his poems at Taping for the Blind. Pudding House Press published two of his chapbooks last year, and Paying Admissions was a Finalist-of Note in their 2009 chapbook competition. He is currently taking an acting class so he can memorize and perform some of his work in front of loud, boisterous audiences. During the day, he is a rotating equipment specialist at a Houston engineering firm.

John Milkereit will be reading his poetry with Net Poets Society at the Friendswood Public Library on Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 at 7pm.

Love Poem

                            Poetry is…great for getting phone numbers --Wynton Marsalis

I would rather just make you a phone. Endless minutes

with a ring tone of that rescued kitten. Why don’t

I make you a phone that you can’t put down, which

also jams other callers. Why don’t I wear you a hard hat?

Calloused hands that want to help—handyman hands,

which make concertos of insurance and retirement

funds. Why don’t I wake up with a dirty hard hat

that gets an orchestra on coffee? Why don’t I wash

your dishes? Get Palmolive cleaning your losses, dry

tears, and laundry. Why don’t I make you silence?

Knowing when to say nothing, getting into jeans

and work boots to dig quiet holes. Why don’t I fill up

your noisy chambers with jars of pennies, saved-up

so your heart won’t wash that away, your mind

would dial me like a phone. Go ahead and ask if I

cook. I would make you tuna salad, chicken salad,

or even your favorite—egg salad. So now, look what

I’m getting you. How can you hate me?

--John Milkereit

Rotating Equipment Engineer

A rotating equipment engineer ought to land in a poem

because I love the surprise of him

entering a dimly-lit hallway

with his sack lunch

ready to say no to someone.

I enjoy his negating self, his I-don’t-build-anything

kind of job description.

What he actually does is a mystery.

One morning, his glasses could reflect from a computer screen

a motor data sheet or the news that a volcano erupted in Indonesia—

you would never know for sure. I’d want as many turns

in the poem as the pumps he specifies. Words and shafts

are traitors and dirty when the start button is pressed.

Parts spin out of control, taking limbs off their operators.

I reminisce about the days when he made more money

than a doctor, when building factories was a revolution.

His metal is so much like the sentence that takes so long

to get poured, and welded, and bolted into its shape.

Why not turn the result

over to the rulers of the world?

With a red pen mounted on his keyboard, he always waits,

ready to reject a test.

He can fly to a factory in a pair of steel-toed boots

to witness what is ready to ship. No matter what he calculates,

or whatever tools are hidden in his pocket, he is never finished.

--John Milkereit

Upon Hearing That the Poetry Festival Lost My Poem Titles for Their Anthology

and where exactly did they go?

Monkeys in the jungle who swing

high above your submission process

would know rather than the greased

pigs. Since you’re the red-faced web

guru who lost the titles, can you say

if the titles were caught in an ocean

by the jaws of a novel? Did they sneak

home with someone else, or do their

coats no longer fit? Are their hats too

worn and tired? I want to know if they

went up in a hot air balloon to lift

a child I don’t know. Surely they would

have announced any rowdiness or

jealousy. I demand notification if they

fled to a courthouse to change their words

and wished to relocate. They have not escaped

abuse because there has never been abuse.

If they fell from this rollercoaster ride

called Poetry, then it’s their own fault,

and who knows where they landed.

The ferris-wheel operator would know

if they lingered a little longer to kiss

while you weren’t looking. I want to know

of lost keys. I want reassurance that your

volunteers always had money for spotlight

batteries. If the titles were stolen like license

plates, surely, you issued an A.P.B. I want

to know you asked the cyberspace reception

lady at the front desk. You had better find

the titles—I’m near the end of a book

whose title I don’t remember.

--John Milkereit

Read more poems by John Milkereit:

Geisha
Folk Song
Because you requested poetry about Jimi Hendrix and eggplant
Disgruntled Tree
Reminiscing About Matchsticks
Gumbo Season
If We Lived at Sarah Oppenheimer's D-17

Watch John Milkereit read:
Blues Song & Madison Park
American Gothic