I did not engineer
Nor attempt to construct
The human soul
No
Not I
The mere idea seemed frivolous
Damnably gelatinous and
Above all else
Impossible to comprehend
How silly it might turn out
Indeed I thought this
I did attempt however
To make a spicy jam
One evening at the
End of Winter I believe
Lovely time
When this,
What I consider the beginning of a debacle,
Began
I threw together
Bits, and things, and twigs,
And professional spices,
And Illicit words, and
Brown sugar,
And old tea,
And harmless fun
And Puppy Dog Tails,
And I’m allergic to snails,
And something that I called Steve
It could have been Tom
But it looked like a Steve to me
Despite its arguments that it was
A Barbra through and through
I stirred and fiddled and sang
To this black and thin glop
I indeed attempted to call
A spiced jam concoction
That was tap-dancing in circles
On my stovetop without permission
When, no I know, the usual happened
I became bored
Yes
Yes Indeed I did
Bored
Thoroughly
Bored
Bored
Bored
Where was I?
Oh yes.
Bored
Bored of this
Damnable,
Jammable,
Fred Astaire
Not spicy jam
So I left what would become
The self-engineering diluent,
Now a vicious, viscous, and crude thing
That would become the human soul
On the back burner
While I cooked some pasta instead
I prefer pasta
It is delicious
Not like that mistake of mine
It continued to be a mistake of mine
It was not pasta,
It was not spiced jam,
And I never remembered to throw it in the Hazmat bin
Whoops
For a year
I believe
It could have been a week
A very long and tiring week
Or seven years
When I heard the back burning
Singing back to me
About apples with a crisp bite
About fireworks that misfired
About drug needles used to sew together sanity
Was this too spicy?
With its two voices of
Hospital dust
And
Captive applause
Oh my,
This couldn't possibly
Taste good
I believe whatever this has
Festered into without
Adult supervision,
I believe it might be beginning to turn
Like milk and wine
I bottled it in a wooden bottle
And left it on the stoop of an orphanage
To find a good home
I wonder if this not spiced jam
Has found a good home
Last I heard
They all went from it to They
And attended Engineering School.
