Machinery For Raising Water Poem by Stan Petrovich

Great passage of water
Through pipes, branching from the Euphrates:
That was Nebuchadnezzar's gift to his twerking wife Amytis,
Who longed for trees,
Who longed for Medea,
And its heady fragrance.
Strabo's map of the world,
Going all the way to India,
In 17 volumes it is said,
Was a product of his squinty eyes,
So closely set he could watch Babylon from Athens.
He could also see the back of his thining hair,
Like a hare,
And divined the sizes of the sun and the moon,
With which he discussed with Augustus,
Over black wine,
That as well as the mysterious perfection of Imperialism,
While Augustus drooled
And the Empire slopped up his spit,
Just like the pipes
Driving high
The gangly waters of the Euphrates.