"chlorine" poems
There's a yellow green gas,
You can't see in your glass.
Sometimes you can tell,
It's there by the smell.
It does a great job removing bacteria,
Like Diphtheria,
Or even Listeria.
But what do you think,
Happens to the chlorine in your drink?
I don't want to alarm,
But there's a chance it might harm.
It protects at a price,
Attacking our bacteria that are nice,
And I'm sure it excels,
At killing your own cells,
Forcing new ones to grow,
When a mistake could cause woe.
Some studies have found it an enhancer,
Of bladder and bowel cancer.
Whether old or young,
Do you want it in your lung?
You have the power,
To remove it from your shower.
It's rather grim,
To have to breathe it when you swim.
You're more likely to wheeze,
Or sneeze.
Do you think it will please,
Your inflammatory bowel disease?
Perhaps it's the key,
To why there's Crohns and UC.
Do you think that your skin,
Might become a little thin,
And be filled with dread,
As it starts to turn red.
Can you not feel,
How it's harder to heal?
It makes our tissues grow old,
From what I've been told.
Our cells can only divide,
A few times before they're stupified.
With asthma and chlorine on a map,
You can see they overlap.
Sadly in the West,
Not everyone has guessed,
That there may be a link,
With the gas in our drink.
“But!”, I hear you cry,
“Without it people will die.”
Let go of your dread,
We can use something instead.
The answer is well known,
It's called 'ozone'.
Made from pure water,
It's gone when it reaches my daughter,
Unlike chlorine it's life is brief,
What a relief.
There's many a city,
That make it with electricity,
Splitting water into hydrogen,
And best of all, oxygen!
For ozone is made from O2,
Yes, it's true!
Imagine if you had,
Water with nothing they add.
Already there's Paris and Nice in France,
Where people can dance.
San Diego and Los Angeles in the USA,
Have water that's ok.
And Osaka in Japan,
Now use this plan.
But you don't have to be rich,
To make the switch.
Ask a clever committee,
To stop chlorine in your city.
See if you can arrange,
To have your water change.
I hear you shout,
“Can 'I' get this chlorine out?”
If you leave water in a jug overnight,
What's left will be slight.
Boiling will send it away in the air,
So there's no need to despair.
You can also remove it with a filter,
Or a water distiller.
To learn more have a look,
At 'Question Chlorine' on facebook.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 5:05 AM UTC
chlorine is toxic
hindsight is 20/20,
but i never should have kissed you
Oct 31, 2019
Oct 31, 2019 at 8:53 PM UTC
I tried
to throw it out
along with the bubbles,
the yellow duck,
and the knickers the dog crudely
chewed
pushed it amongst silled plants,
now it stands,
between Thick Cut Marmalade
and Chlorine Free Baking Cups
a token, painted green with white
Maori dots, symbolizing
the small dreamings
of a tortoise
and since this house
is my body, see
how I have placed you
in the kitchen
and I cannot get beyond,
the simple meaning,
of daily needing
love like water, air
and how I don't seek
to see it fully
yet often find myself
checking if its there.
Jan 18, 2011
Jan 18, 2011 at 12:14 PM UTC
i'm not sure what happened
to those beautiful women
i used & let live in my
shivering veins
synchronized swimming in my circulatory system
sunken eyes brimming
with that chlorine concoction they used to dip in
i dug them & ditched them
but i still recollect their quivering lips
as i dispensed the final kisses
& surrounded the spa with walls & fences
i mean i wonder if they still exist
with no lifeguard there to witness them?
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 7:47 PM UTC
carcinogen fogs will cancer you thick
you will dismiss
the salt stain of a visitor
you will pretend
the Tuesday's are not boring
the coffee is not weak
the room smells like chlorine
remember
you are a girl.
she
smiles for money.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 1:27 PM UTC
My youth was short and blurred.
I imagine it felt like the last few moments of Kurt Cobain’s life;
All light and no color.
Though I was born a winter baby,
Summers irrevocably held my heart.
They tasted like the sunscreen that dripped
onto my chlorine-damp lips
And smelled sweet like the honeysuckles
That strangled the Forget-Me-Nots,
Whose roots twisted between the cemeteries
Of our once-pets beneath.
Sep 23, 2018
Sep 23, 2018 at 8:14 PM UTC
As the hazy summer days flew by
My heart still sang a lover's song
Longing to retrieve pieces of a broken heart
Perhaps forge anew withing another's arms
But there simply is not enough time, the summer was dying.
Much like the blazing fire within my soul
Deep pensive thoughts,
Concocted by this newly acquired sense of maturity,
Took hold of my mind
As the winter's grasp took my heart.
All the while the scent of old textbooks, chlorine, and dead flowers
Fueled my life.
My legs were tired after constantly running.
One boy to another
And the embers begin to die.
No longer does my heart desire the affection of another
Why run to the beach?
Why try again?
It all ends in pain.
The long hours of talking on the phone
Sharing secrets
Learning all there is to know about another
Loving.
Loving all there is to love and getting your soul torn?
No, I quit this cruel game.
Months pass and I am still hiding in the deep corners of my mind
Trusting another with my emotions?
What insanity
I can trust myself, and myself alone
The snow starts to fall and the cold reaches my core.
I am alone.
My fault? Perhaps
I just gave up on the game of 'love'
But all it really takes is little spark
To make a fire once more.
The new year is rung in with a bonfire under the stars
Notes, cards, flowers...everything
All up in flames.
I watch my old year ablaze before my eyes
And scratch open into a new notebook
"2013"
The blank pages stare back at me
As I ponder which words to embellish the skin with
More deep thoughts...
What do I want?
Having ignored all social aspects of my life,
I was happy.
Good grades, friends at my disposal, decent swim team times
As my thoughts continued
I ignored the feeling building up in my throat.
"Nobody loves you."
Independent, strong, beautiful, cunning, intelligent...
Sure when you brake it down I have a lot going for me.
But to take all these qualities
Have someone love your every flaw, bizarre habit, and womanly curve...
An impossible task.
And so I put my faith in the starts
Asking the universe for a miracle.
And then I waited.
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 12:35 AM UTC
I've had
****
Not ***
Not **********
Not consensually.
I've been
******
*****
abused.
taken advantage of.
whatever it is you want to call it
I've had it done.
I've been kissed
Fingered
choked
hit
spit on
spit in
I've been held,
hostage
with knives against my throat
guns to my head,
in my mouth
drugs down my throat
barely conscious I've been
******
I've been in love
I've been heartbroken
I've been touched
consensually,
let me tell you about the consensually.
I've been kissed in the bathroom, lifting
her
up against the wall
laughing when our teeth brushed against
one another's
hands fumbling up a skirt
around a throat
fingers tangled in wavy hair.
I've been touched sitting in her lap
outside on a hot day
wearing her hoodie
around children
freshmen year.
I've been touched
multiple times
by him
in band rooms, away from prying eyes
secrets to be kept and wooed over
laying in a dress
during a concert event
head in the lap of my best friend
underwear brushed to the side
fingers thrusting in
and yes, this was consentually.
I've been touched
in the school hallways
every day after school or in between classes
tasted and tasted
he tasted me
I tasted myself.
And in the living room of our best friend's house
even though I told him no
I told him the safe word
he continued.
I say it was consensual because in the end,
I said I loved it.
Don't argue about it.
I wanted it.
and I've been touched
in her pool
heated ever so lovingly
LED lights danced us into the temptation
as did the alcohol on my part
with her lips against my chest
desperate to mark, yet not to show
i mean, hey, my step-dad's homophobic
though I'd love nothing more than to show who I belong to.
We switched a lot, but ultimately I landed in her lap
water licking up my sides,
sending chills to *******
goosebumps
and her fingers hesitating
not daring to touch.
"i'm going to need a yes."
finally.
Finally asked.
I nodded eagerly
and she treated me like a piano
perfect notes
though brief I know that I was
drenched in all ways
the chlorine water yes
and of course the obvious.
you see, we were going to do something that night
we had the chance to
I wanted to
she wanted to
In the end,
she took something for her headache
though it was a sort of
similar thing to Nyquil
We were going to.
But we laid in bed
and we molded against each other
and sailed asleep.
I've slept with one person.
Her
Sydney
My Muse.
But Still, A ******
am I
Mar 26, 2021
Mar 26, 2021 at 5:31 AM UTC
Don't believe they've met
This family matinee
The kids come with guns
But it's the roll-on wife who's loaded
Beneath the rhythm and sound
There's a sign saying 'POLICE – INCIDENT'
Love may have the right to remain silent
Yet when it ends, it ends badly
Love motionless
At the bottom of
A backyard swimming pool
Now quietly referred to
As the crime scene
Jan 19, 2023
Jan 19, 2023 at 1:16 PM UTC
Maybe someday we could have a picnic together.
Sunlight always makes your eyes shimmer like public swimming pools
with a little too much chlorine, and I’d love to see you dance
nervously when you discover a line of ants marching up your leg.
I’d like to kiss you with the taste of potato salad fresh on your lips
with a twist of lukewarm lemonade; you’d probably push me away
self consciously, but the fact of the matter is that your mouth
would excite me even after eating ten pounds of garlic.
The red checkered blanket would bring out the creamy tones
in your skin and I’d soon find myself devouring your beauty rather than
the pre-made peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
Your voice and its stories are sweeter than any strawberries
I’ve ever tasted, anyhow.
I could plan our lunches together for the rest of our lives,
but you’re not the kind of girl to settle down for a lunch
with someone like me, let alone for a lifetime.
So for some inexplicable reason I imagine myself at your door,
wicker basket in hand, with no answer.
As it would seem, picnics aren’t really your scene.
And neither am I.
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 7:28 PM UTC
Abigail slides the glass door shut.
As beads of water percolate off her body
and land on the faux stone tile,
the smell of chlorine from her swim
and the smell of coffee from my brewing *** blend.
My uncle, Abigail's father, and my mother
are seated at the sticky, spilt soda kitchen table beside me.
"Go get ready for dinner," my mother's brother says, sending
Abigail's bikini'd frame through doorway and around the bend.
The brew idles, and I'm all porcelain and sugar substitute for a moment,
then back by my uncle and mother.
"Abigail has gotten so thin," my mother says.
"Is she eating?" my mother asks.
"I know it's tough for girls her age. When they're looking to marry," my mother says.
I want to bash the smoking cup into her face.
My uncle says she's been training for a marathon.
My neurons get tidy and taper off.
So, it's out of the kitchen and into an empty living room
to park my *** on an empty piano bench.
I set the coffee on top, and press eight of my fingers down
on black keys.
I hear toes-to-heels, toes-to-heels.
I gaze over my shoulder.
Now, Abigail's in a black, black dress. Mid-thigh.
In her left hand,
red fuck-me-shoes with a heel that could turn a curious man blind;
in her right hand,
black pantyhose and cherry lipgloss.
"You should have swam," Abigail delivers with hushed precision,
like she'd been reciting the line throughout the duration of her swim.
Abigail has long brunette hair,
and it's sticking to her neck.
Deep permanent dimples frame her lips.
She's a nurse in Waco.
Each time I see her, I think about
Bukowski's 103-pound "Texan".
It makes me rash, violent, a heady monstrosity,
and trembling sick.
"I forgot my trunks."
"That's no excuse."
I would respond, but she's sliding the hose up her leg.
In the living room.
While my uncle talks a second mortgage around the bend.
Her right leg crosses her left,
an overpass and an interstate.
My forehead overheats in a flash,
and I feel like she's staring back at me.
When my leering eyes shift from
her toes to her eyes, the pupils beckon:
"All roads lead to me."
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 12:48 AM UTC
I know what love tastes like
sort of like the warm berries on your lips
mixed with chlorine and
cheap pink perfume from a plastic spray bottle
like lukewarm coffee that was carried on a bike by a underage boy
it tastes like jealousy on the roof of my mouth
at the success and intelligence that sweats from him
like
pride that overwhelms me--a wave of warm sunshine
like a cold metal ring in my mouth (biting it nervously--the raw disruptive taste of metal waking my senses)
as I say goodbye for the day
(or week)
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 12:34 PM UTC
If a world is known by its ideals
Let mine be known as sanity
Let all men be infertile
And all women, stale
Let streets be known for sanitation
And all babies dipped in chlorine
All talk, sterile and sufficient
All excrement concealed
Let the youth of my predecessors
And their mocking vulgarity
Drown in a town of minimal design
And shocking similarity.
Sep 6, 2014
Sep 6, 2014 at 6:40 PM UTC
She reveled above the film
of Central Park sun-rays
Angel of granite,
seductress
of seagulls
Perched above her iconic
feathered fingers
Angel of granite,
enchanter of flocks
of well traveled bodies
flecked with salty sea crystals
Angel of granite,
fountain May
Cascades dancing diamonds
from her feet
Posing for pictures,
frozen in heat
of
Summertime sailboat
breeze
Angel of granite, goddess of
brittle bird bones
wading in
chlorine puddles of tears
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 8:44 PM UTC
I think I can relate you to vinegar.
Bitter, noxious, not very useful all alone.
I don't think I warned you,
but I'm a lot like bleach.
Caustic, corrosive, flammable,
and absolutely wonderful with the right material.
Now, put us together.
Were we both so stupid not to realise
that vinegar and bleach
make toxic chlorine gas?
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
Can you teach me how to smoke,
At the indoor pool?
Cannabis and chlorine
On a night so cool.
I can ditch the white pills
Without crushing the moon,
If you can roll something up
Without killing the mood.
What's left to prove
If it's just me and you?
I mean, you and I
Decide
If we have any rules.
We can feel, we can chill.
We can deal with the truth.
Cannabis and chlorine.
Fuse green with the blue.
Cannabis and chlorine.
A mixture of hues.
All you gotta do
Is make my lungs so confused.
Cannabis and chlorine,
When it's just me and you.
Can you teach me how to smoke
At the indoor pool?
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 11:19 AM UTC
I plunge into the cold water on that warm July day
no goggles, only the loose-fitting swimming trunks
I swim through the blur of chlorine
pushing through the water
when a familiar tune I heard hours earlier traps itself in my brain
and I suddenly become weightless, a plane high above in the air
The water is pure blue sky, below me the clouds
And at the bottom the city in ruins
I take my plane and dive down below the clouds
past the blur, until the city is in view just below me
I level the bomber and let it soar low above the ground
Over the pale white shells of buildings
I remember the museum exhibit that inspires this flight
I walk through, studying the pictures and the uniforms and the weapons on display
when in the distance of the room beyond I hear the familiar tune:
Brian Eno's "Ascent (An Ending)". It brings me closer, and I move past the exhibits
at a quickening pace, past the slow browsers
glancing only briefly to read, to catch a glimpse of an object, a photo, a map
I keep going, "Ascent" on a loop, its minimalist beauty entrancing me
until I find a large television in a small corner.
A few people are gathered around, solemn,
the television entrancing them, the music washing over the room.
First the white words centered against the black screen: "The Bomb".
The come the white-and-black photos and footage of the mushroom clouds hovering above Hiroshima, then Nagasaki,
standing tall like ungainly trees in an empty field.
The soundtrack to the short video before me is "Ascent",
or rather an excerpt, a piece of it, stirring strange emotions
Familiar ones that I give attribution to when I listen to it on my own.
Yet it feels different coming from this;
on the screen a few photographs of corpses and burnt victims flash by.
And then the screen fades to black, a moment of silence
before it all starts again
I hear this loop and see these images before me as I fly above
the imagined city in ruins
And for a brief moment I am the Enola Gay;
I will only know it at the bottom of a hotel pool
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 4:23 AM UTC
Your scent has become chlorine to me.
Every whiff,
Every inhale,
Burns through my nostrils
And into my lungs.
And yet I still cant get enough.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 5:36 PM UTC
shirelles
monday night
alone in a big house
light the candles
another one of my rituals
born one hour,
dead the next
to make room
for other
prayers
postures
pen tips
but the way candles
flicker in the sweet
soul
is not another ritual
warm life
to the tune of golden
notes
swimming through
once bleak
once empty
once impure
air
and suddenly, I am baptized
more than I ever was
in that sterile, dead
chlorine
more than spent hymns
in drafty cathedrals
so, the sound lives.
my bed would tilt
at twelve years old
I'd wake
startled of the
psychic death
spread like bodies after
a paid for war
I'd scream like the cats
fighting by the window
at my aunts house
I would huddle with
my childhood
hiding from the puberty
that stalked me
like a jungle cat
the mind reeled with
my spent pulse and
at night
under shamed
covers
bitten fingertips
the white light
on the street
looking on
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 2:30 AM UTC
Seagull on rotting planks, bouy bells ding to fog and driftwood.
A culling fire exploits the docking shire.
Filled with chlorine shards, legs caught in the clap-traps.
Friar palms glisten,
Rage responds with frisson.
Clear view over water.
Feel your arms relax and slip onto your back while the culling fire attacks.
Bulbous deadening brain chimes
As the eyes slide down to your omission crimes.
Leave me alone in my despondent company.
Don't push the matter further let communication fail to nurture.
A warm breeze carries me
like a floating portrait towards unreal scented meats.
I'm here now, alone in the corner,
The greatest intimacy with the static patterns on the carpeted flooring. The king of this corner is the odor of plank seating and flowery detergent in this lonely corridor fluorescent light-bulb poles and old grain floorboards.
Now the returning shards of panic to uncelibate strangers drive me up, far, deep in my own ribcage to something wholly non-organic.
Time to clock-in, time to check out.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 1:25 AM UTC
twitchy sniffly noses
silky bracelets woven
a sennight of whispers
and soft rains fallen
bones strident ringing
skins slow submerging
bloodshot eyes and
star-shot skies and
cheekbones shrouded
in staling chlorine
sneaking syrup smiles
under honey gold
four tonics drowned
to fight off the cold
and fast fortune-telling
for finites foretold
trace the lines and
face the folds, please
hold both palms closer
but leave them closed
twitchy ditzy fingers
***** rings unspooled
a sennight of stories
and sinking in pools
bones washed in phenol
skins slick like ferrule
bloodshot minds and
star-shot why’s and
wisteria lips speckled in
the warmest shade of cool.
Jan 26, 2022
Jan 26, 2022 at 8:01 PM UTC
I know you think
I wear lipstick everyday
And my hands always
Smell like
Chai tea and raspberries
I know you think
My tongue always
Tastes like
Melted sugar
And peppermint
I know you think
I sleep in the same lace
Underwear
You find me in
On certain Sundays
In the spring
When the air is light
And my jeans
Don't stick
To my thighs
I know you think
I'm larger than life
Above chipped teeth
And bruises
And cigarette ash
And acne
I know you think
My eyes don't turn
Blood red
And poison
When I cry
I know you think
My finger nails
Are always
Freshly painted
And I always wear
A bra
That fits
I know you think
Yoga pants are
My comfy clothes,
Never gray sweat pants
With a faded red stain
Between my legs
I know you think
My calves are always
Soft, hairless, and toned
You think
I wait by the phone
With vanilla incense
Burning in a red robe
But you're wrong
And that's impossible
I won't let you in
Cause I won't be
The one
To shatter
Your whole
Pretty, little world
I'm disgusting
Sometimes
I sleep with
Way too many
Girls and guys
And sometimes I cry so much
My eyelids peel
Til I look like
Leather face
And I don't leave my house
For 8 days
And in those 8 days
I shower
Maybe twice
My skin gets rough
In the winter
Right now
I have a
Pimple on
My left shoulder
And every morning
It looks a little
Meaner
My ***** spill
Out over the top
And the sides
Of my favorite
Sport's bra
And I don't care
I smell like burnt oil
And cheap hair dye
Half of the time
I haven't washed
My sheets in a while
And they smell like
Salt water
And chlorine
You put me up on a pedestal
From which I refuse to fall
So I'll stay here,
Far,
Untouchable
You'll never love me
With sticky tampons
In my garbage can
And half drank beer bottles
On my bedroom floor
I'll stay here,
Far,
Untouchable,
Safe
Nov 26, 2016
Nov 26, 2016 at 7:45 PM UTC