My Poor Attempts at Poetry Over the Years

These are two poems I composed close to 19 years ago, both of them while I worked at Chase.  The first is about a co-worker by the name of Raquel Aziz I worked with then.  Raquel was originally of Trinidadian origin, and she loved to eat a tone of garlic on her food which often stunk up the office!  Her co-worker, a sweet church lady we called Miss Grant, used to spray a ton of air freshener around while Raquel would indulge in her garlic-laden feasts.  She is referenced here as well, so enjoy!

The second is about another co-worker named Mark, who after indulging a few Coronas one weekend claimed he saw a dancing cow on South Beach.   My guess was that a Chick-Fil-A was close by, and it was probably a guy in a suit doing a promotion on the beach, something a slightly-tipsy beachgoer might not quite comprehend at the time.  

Ode To The Garlic Queen

Lest you catch a pungent reek

When the lunch hour peaks

The Garlic Queen has come!

Nostrils contract and olfactories shrink

When her dish eeks forth its stink

Then those around her start to pray

That the Lord provideth an air-freshening spray

As forth the pungent aroma blasts

One can feel the churning of gastric gas

She calls everyone a "Pooch"

But the air around her is as intoxicating as a cheap hooch

Mama sits with her spray can

Pleading to the Lord that some brave man

Would enforce on those pungent bulbs a ban

Oh, Allium Tricullum what is your appeal

That with you the Garlic Queen smothers her meal?

This little verse is an alarm

Lest your nose be assaulted with the pungent balm

Hail,oh Queen of rancid herb

Eat heartily of the meals you serve

But please have mercy on our olfactory nerves!

The Dancing Cow

My faculties were out of reach

when on an outing I went one night

I wandered down to the beach

and beheld myself a sight!

With black and white patches on its form

it danced in the pale moonlight

A large figure that wasn't quite the norm

did a Texas Two-Step - what a fright!

The bovine was enraptured in its dance

I could not believe my eyes

I thought that I was in a trance

that my senses were telling me lies

Today I swear I saw that cow

But no one will take my word

I still try to figure out how

that beast could kick the dirt

V-8 and Alka Seltzer did not suffice

as that vision still captures my whim

Perhaps the sun was more than strong

the day I beheld a beast so prim.