"detergent" poems
There is something magical
in the whirring
of a midday laundromat.
A cessation of pride,
maybe.
People all dressed in sweatpants
the air full of detergent smell
and the sound of coins clicking
against great tumblers
as they go round
and round
and round
and round...
The people smile back,
no use pretending superiority here.
Whistlers twitter on, folding towels and socks into neat, organized piles.
The children are well behaved,
their hands full of potato chips
given by their parents as a pittance for their patience.
The patient patrons
ponder on,
their empty hands crumpling receipts.
This, with the crunching of chips
and the distant whistle
over the percussion of clicking
coins clattering
in a dryer
compose an unintentional opera,
an ode to humility.
Humility's honorable honesty heals humanity's hubris.
Noisy trucks pass outside the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows,
Where the hot air wreaks its violence
and men make their ways
in spite.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 5:00 PM UTC
The Washing machine that fits comfortably in a backpack
It means being prepared and not in lack
Your clothes will be clean like a tack
The mission is too carefully pack
Take the portable miniature washing machine wherever you go
Your ***** clothes you won’t have to show
The true clean puts you in the know
Turn hiking dirt into a kirk
The refreshing clean with the assistance of detergent Mr. Clean
***** cleans will become lean
Tough on stains and dirt with after being clean
Hike up any trail and mountain being confidence
Refreshed clothes as your testimony in instance
Pack that portable washing machine and let it turn your hiking experience into endurance
Convenience in the wilderness
Outdoor clean in the happiness
The stains that will come out
Add another detergent of Shout
Now that’s what I am talking about.
Aug 18, 2014
Aug 18, 2014 at 5:11 AM UTC
Orange capsules of condensed vitamin C
Tumble out onto my cracked,
Outstretched palm,
As I arch my spine towards the bathroom sink,
Scooping lukewarm water from the faucet
Into my half closed mouth-
The tiny pills clog my upturned throat:
Just two of the numerous solutions
To a world too numb
To contest.
I've never felt more alive,
Than when I'm drowning my body
With handfuls of tap water
And magic remedies bottled up and
Marketed to a world
Afraid of growing old.
Lining the wall of local drug stores,
One isle over from office supplies
And scented laundry detergent.
Multicolored, multipurpose-
Labels proclaim the fountain of youth
To anyone alive enough to fear it.
There's never enough of reality
To reach our depleted veins
Through the ever present forms
Of the world. Enough isn't
Enough, until we've convoluted it into a tiny
Plastic oval, and forced it down the throats
Of those well enough to swallow it.
Pharmaceutical companies proclaim their
Daily gospel in the linoleum streets
Of hospital waiting rooms
And local grocery stores,
As I cross my heart and count the
Hours until my next prescribed dose
Of complacency. Who knew happiness
Could have the bitter after taste of
Vitamin B or
The credibility of Zoloft.
The sandman has been replaced by Benadryl,
While creativity lies stagnant
Beneath adderall's indifferent thumb.
Obsession is a 26 letter alphabet,
Strung together by a bunch of deficiencies,
Incoherently droning on
To the burden of Man,
And flickering neon light
Of a drive-thru pharmacy.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 1:41 AM UTC
summer, spring, winter, fall,
it always carried a whiff of cleanliness, like lysol,
bleach and daffodils had made a not so secret love
child.
there were never any marks. no signs of mistakes,
accidents, humanity.
the floors glistened like the sun beaming off a black
convertible.
the windows, you couldn’t even tell they were
windows. not without the panes.
transparent like the shores of the Mediterranean.
I never touched anything.
I held my breath among glass, ornaments, picture frames.
afraid one intake would show up like a smudge that could
never be wiped off, no matter how much one tried.
she fits the house. like those china dolls, polished to perfection.
blonde hair rolled in unison curls. no frizz. never any
fly aways.
face just like those windows, eyes raging in a storm too far away.
his room was the only one i could sink in.
legos scattered
(i always stepped on the yellow ones)
clothes fuming with dirt and almost manhood.
his posters crooked, carrying characters dressed in
armor, or tuxedos, animated, weapons in hand.
his bed, never made, incasing the last impression of his body
(he always slept on his side)
a spot of drool still visible, blankets holding his scent.
soap, laundry detergent and oranges.
game controllers trashed, bite marks, dents, too many battles.
i finally breathed when i walked in.
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 8:06 PM UTC
I write my shopping-list in rhyme.
It doesn’t take me too much time,
and always helps me to remember.
(I’ve been doing it since last September.)
Wholemeal bread
low-fat spread
strawberry jam
dry-cured ham
Cheddar cheese
frozen peas
free-range eggs
chicken legs
grape jelly
pork belly
lamb chops
lemon drops
fillet steak
chocolate cake
cookie mix
seafood sticks
tortilla chips
salsa dips
instant coffee
treacle toffee
dried sultanas
ripe bananas
runner beans
a bunch of greens
new potatoes
vine tomatoes
and (really urgent)
liquid detergent.
Now that I've written my shopping-list,
I hope there's nothing that I've missed.
And if you don't think much of the verse,
Consider this - it could have been worse!
Jul 29, 2016
Jul 29, 2016 at 7:34 PM 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
gin reminds me of
black birds
{singing
in the dead
of
night
}
when i want to
take my
b r o k e n
wings
&
learn y
to l
f
of flowers
blooming in
january
and
slightly-sweet country music
of
{almost}
thunderstorms and orange
blossoms
of wearing
too much
mascara
and blush
just to walk around
naked
in my kitchen
of cheeks
flushed
and the taste of lime
and gingerale
on the pads of
my
fingers
of restless nights
when days are l o n g
and sweet cosmos
and wine
don't cut the edg
e
and the
sting
of lavender laundry detergent
on a paper cut
of
being a
GROWNwoman and realizing
that
childhood
doesn't
end.
or stop.
when you
walk
a c r o ss
a stage
of t
u m
b l
e
off of a summer warmed s
l
i
d
e
of swisher
sweets
and wind chimes
in north carolina
of pressed powder and the tastes of
watered down
iced coffee
{coffee
ice
shake
almond milk
pour}
with no sugar
Jan 29, 2013
Jan 29, 2013 at 5:57 PM UTC
**
that sweet husky voice of yours
while i come undone on the sheets
washing machine, detergent
i'm all gone
Oct 10, 2016
Oct 10, 2016 at 2:38 PM UTC
Burnt toast and
a spot of blood.
Father dresses for work
and leaves with a wave,
his gabardine suit
the exact same shade
as the storm cloud blooming
on the back of his left hand.
After breakfast, mother pins
his undershirts to the wash line,
clothespins clenched
between broken teeth.
From my upstairs window,
I watch his shirts stiffening
in the flinty December air,
a chorus of white flags,
obsequious and clean.
Mother recovers in the laundry room,
where the floor is dusted with feeble
grains of spilled detergent.
I spend the afternoon
preparing for the sound
of tires crunching on gravel,
for the sweep of headlights
across the lawn.
There are plans
and maneuvers
to arrange.
Counterattacks.
Even now, the snow
on the side of the road
has turned to the color
of my childhood.
Nov 20, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 at 4:18 PM UTC
The scent of cigarette smoke
and laundry detergent
enters my nose once more.
It reminds me of the times
when you and I
were better.
The way our hands intertwined
for those glorious moments of harmonious nothing,
then we whispered sweet goodbyes, until our next meeting.
It reminds me of the days
when you wanted to
sit next to me.
When we didn't have to do anything,
except exist.
And we were perfectly happy.
I don't smell it much any more,
that cigarette smoke and laundry detergent.
I miss it.
You and I met not too long ago.
Though our hands never touched,
I could smell the cigarette smoke and laundry detergent.
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 3:53 AM UTC
If I wanted to talk
about the hyper-spiritually-"honest" hippie roommate
who wears his heart on his sleeve and kangols
when he's working
at his cumbersome office
corrupting and invading the minds
of the masses to promote glasses, salad dressing
and laundry detergent,
it would take too much time out of my day
to point out all the hypocritical ********
this meditation obsessed wannabe "writer"
tries to passively fling on others.
He means well, but let' be honest,
all that dope he smokes
probably turned his brain to ashes
as the pile blew away some time ago.
Besides, I'd prefer not to talk about myself.
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 11:13 AM UTC
Hydrogen, a gas
Fusing in the night sky stars
As we watch in awe.
Helium, such a
Noble gas, lightly lovely,
Filling our balloons.
Our first alkali
Lithium, lightest metal,
Stabilizing moods.
Beryllium, a
Metal that makes alloys which
Are strong and don't spark.
Do your laundry, friends,
And experience boron:
Borax detergent.
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 12:19 PM UTC
Better natured today than yesterday,
smelling less like cigarettes and more
like laundry detergent, you sit across
from your therapist at the bar and
ask for one more boilermaker.
You say, How do you desire what you already possess?
And your therapist says, Don't go down that drunk.
That's a bad drunk.
You're in a floral print A-line dress, one
you bought from your sister-in-law.
She's doing one of those multilevel marketing things
and though her Facebook posts make you want
to suicide yourself, she's happy and independent
and at home with her kids. Despite these lukewarm
feelings, you harbor some resentment as you finger
and thumb a seam that's already coming undone.
Sloane. Your husband keeps mentioning a woman
at the office named Sloane. You're at the bar,
almost alone, and promised yourself
you wouldn't think about Sloane. But here you are.
Sloane in a pencil skirt and stockings. Sloane
with a fresh ****** energy, the kind you can't
seem to summon, and you wonder why ***
is such an important thing. It's so brief,
forgettable, full of abject compromise.
*** is an inherently violent act, don't you think?
You say to the therapist.
If your therapist hears you, he doesn't respond.
You don't repeat the question.
You watch yourself broadcast on the TV above the bar.
They're commenting on your hair and your arms
and going on and on about your likability.
Your therapist changes the mood. It's 6:30.
He gives the place a nighttime feel.
He kills a row of lights and turns on the
colored bulbs, the blues and greens.
The TV is turned down. The music is turned up.
This is what you've been waiting for, the lights, the music.
There's an hour before anyone really shows up. You can
close your eyes and drift.
Two or three drinks pass. A couple walks in.
You have your therapist put in for an Uber.
Maybe I've been asking the question the wrong way, you say.
Oh yeah? the therapist says.
Yeah. Maybe the question should be reversed.
Maybe the question should be
how do you remain desirable to the objects you possess?
That seems like a lot of work. Seems like you'd have no
sense of self. You'd always be bending.
I've been a plus one for a long time.
You say bending. But I wouldn't be
doing anything new. I already do all these things.
But I see them as a compromise. I'm just trying
to reframe, you know?
Why? your therapist asks.
You open your mouth and find no words. You smile. You say you've had too much. You're rambling. You're sorry. You better go.
Nov 7, 2016
Nov 7, 2016 at 12:15 PM UTC
It's Sunday
The Mexicans are all doing their laundry
Little girls with shiny bows, sweatpants and sequined tops
Happy smiling faces
Lead the brigade
Mothers follow
Shopping carts on the brink of exploding
The wheels about to blow
Tuxedo shirts, soccer uniforms with the words ***** PAN monogrammed on the front, mismatched socks, and pajamas with feet
Colors
A mess
Cheap laundry detergent stuck on top
I rush down to the laundry
They always take the best machines
I find my place
Throw my little load in
One person does not have that much
I never realized how alone I was
Until that moment
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 12:54 AM UTC
everyone has an aroma,
that of their house or detergent,
that trails behind them,
while they go about their daily business.
you smell like peaches,
and i bet it follows you,
even when you take the trash out,
or go out for a run.
i've never been to your home but i can only think,
that your house smells like peaches too.
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 5:21 PM UTC
have you ever held the sun in your hands
sometimes i carry it around in my pockets and forget it’s there
sometimes i feel so full of it that i believe in god again
what else is there besides
the streams of light peeking through magnolia leaves
who am i to the baseball shirt
to the blazer or the black fishnets or the crooked bottom teeth
it doesn’t matter
i smell lemon verbena laundry detergent and it’s like time travel
i’m in our west hollywood apartment again falling asleep on my right hip
sometimes i am forty-two but i am always fourteen
do you see me on the page or in the sidewalk cracks
i wish i didn’t care but i always do
where does it come from
the longing
the need to be loved by the things that we love
i hear a song or read a poem and i’m on my knees
i hate being looked at but
i’d do anything for you to see me
Mar 27, 2021
Mar 27, 2021 at 8:44 AM UTC
The coffee *** just signalled, Ready,
So I pour the cream before the java:
A cup of divergent thinking.
There are roads running
In opposite directions,
Sharing points of similarity:
A tree, a sign, me.
Inside or outside the box of thinking,
Using the lower and upper ladder rungs
To paint the same wall,
Prologues and epilogues to the same story,
Lawyers in clown suits,
Children using,
Kittens chewing slippers,
Dogs in litter boxes,
Earth cooling,
Healing and feeding the masses,
Elected monarchies... NO monarchies,
Sleeping in or getting up,
Cursory letter to family and friends
(Though this is coming to an end),
Making love while wearing gloves,
The moon moves east to west
In the blink of sleep,
Churches giving alms and unlocking doors,
Schools excelling,
Parents attending.
To juxtapose is divergent,
Like sobering up with detergent
(You may be clean, but are you dry?).
If insurgents were divergent,
We'd have more convergence.
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 9:25 AM UTC
Hints of maple kiss each of
your highlander grog fingertips.
The smell of her shampoo
pierces & permeates throughout
your living room, lingering still
to this day, on your pillow.
You told her you'd make a perfume
that smells like the car heater on
long drives home for Christmas.
Aromas of her laundry detergent
still live in your spine
like LSD.
When you turn your neck a
certain way you fall back
into trances of her & 1997.
Vick's Vaper Rub, NyQuil
Cough Syrup breath, with
a 104 degree fever. She
sobbed when her last
sea monkey died
You called her cartographer.
Intricate trails of herself connecting
each board of your apartment floor.
Charted long ago when her
candle still burned scents of warmth.
The art of burning,
a front the fire place of
maple logs where you told her
to "Let go."
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 2:56 AM UTC
There's Midnight Ravens
along the telephone
wire.
Big black suckers
with deep dark
eyes that
see death
before it comes.
These hosts
of the end
pay me no mind
as I pass beneath
their roost.
They rudely go
about their
Raven buisness,
yelling and
******** their way
into the morning.
An unrelenting
bark drums
on from
behind
a white painted
fence.
An insane sound
like an alarm that
no one will turn
off.
I step over a small
cities worth of
ants who are
scrambling
around a crack
in the
sidewalk
clogged with
more frantic
ants.
The great flood
has arrived
in the form of
a timed sprinkler.
And all of
the soldiers
have abandoned
the Queen.
It's early morning
The air has
yet to be
choked out
by the
diesel fuel
and needless
emissions that will
soon began to
smother the
city
.
The faint smell
of fresh fish
makes its way
up the city
blocks from
the waterfront
below.
Old Italian and
Slavic women
stand outside
in their
long day time
night gowns
smoking cigarettes
while watering
the concrete.
I enter the
alley way ,
the smell of
***** diapers,
cheap
laundry detergent
and too
many children
surround an
apartment complex.
As I passed I came
upon the Black Princess
of these streets.
The wisest and
surest of them all
crosses my path.
Her tail held high
and strong,
striding care free,
she looks at me
with her
emerald eyes
and yawns.
She stops near a row
of trashcans that
are lined
up looking like
a modern
day monolith.
She laps at her
paw with slow,
long, lazy
licks as I
pass.
She again fixes me
with those marble green
eyes and lets me
know without
saying a word.
That the alley cat kills
for fun.
Ignores all Gods
by choice
and laughs
at our attempts
to tame it.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 11:39 AM UTC
You smell like laundry detergent, mongrel, and marijuana
wrapped in strawberry cigar papers. The way
the couch smells warm of people
prior to the heat and sweat we produced
on its rough synthetic fibers
that left me brush burns. Of French fries
and cheesy steak hoagies caked
to your apron as big golden
grease stains. You smell
of a soft shower, the nothingness
smell of water, that is still a smell.
Of loofah drenched with cobalt body wash
that your mother bought, not quite
feminine enough, but nothing you picked out yourself.
Of turquoise Listerine, the first and last time I had to wash
you out. Pineapples and watermelons, latex
and the salty smell that could be sweat
or ***** When the air is mixed with gasoline
and ***** ground winter snow,
filled with rock salt. That’s what you smell like,
in case you were wondering, her jacket
smells of you.
Aug 11, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 8:01 PM UTC
Good for visiting hospitals or charitable work. Take some time to attend to your health.
Surely I will be disquieted
by the hospital, that body zone--
bodies wrapped in elastic bands,
bodies cased in wood or used like telephones,
bodies crucified up onto their crutches,
bodies wearing rubber bags between their legs,
bodies vomiting up their juice like detergent, Here in this house
there are other bodies.
Whenever I see a six-year-old
swimming in our aqua pool
a voice inside me says what can't be told...
Ha, someday you'll be old and withered
and tubes will be in your nose
drinking up your dinner.
Someday you'll go backward. You'll close
up like a shoebox and you'll be cursed
as you push into death feet first.
Here in the hospital, I say,
that is not my body, not my body.
I am not here for the doctors
to read like a recipe.
No. I am a daisy girl
blowing in the wind like a piece of sun.
On ward 7 there are daisies, all butter and pearl
but beside a blind man who can only
eat up the petals and count to ten.
The nurses skip rope around him and shiver
as his eyes wiggle like mercury and then
they dance from patient to patient to patient
throwing up little paper medicine cups and playing
catch with vials of dope as they wait for new accidents.
Bodies made of synthetics. Bodies swaddled like dolls
whom I visit and cajole and all they do is hum
like computers doing up our taxes, dollar by dollar.
Each body is in its bunker. The surgeon applies his gum.
Each body is fitted quickly into its ice-cream pack
and then stitched up again for the long voyage
back.
2.1k
i am grateful for stretch denim on days
when
**** it
is a fashion statement
for lavender laundry detergent
because that smell reminds me of the home i've built in my head
for tea at
2 a.m.
when all the things i've done race in my head
because the next morning, i usually get my **** together
for colds
because they make eating an entire roll of cinnamon buns
completely justifiable
for the mountains that surround me
for NPR and good, rated M fanfiction
for def poetry when i can't find the right words
for finding a pack of cigarettes when it is only
11:30pm on a thursday night
and i am well past drunk in a slightly damp armchair
for harry potter and neil gaiman
for when twenty dollars fills up my gas tank
for my grandma's potato salad and biscuits with honey
for feminist zines that make me want to smash the patriarchy
for burts bees chapstick and jasmine-green tea
for friends who let me cry on their
bedroom floors
for books that keep me entertained
(even if that means me crying in my bathtub while reading them)
for courtney love and joan jett because those *******
have ridden in my car with me over many
heart-breaks
for well-water and sulfate free red wine
for johnny cash and new orleans and whiskey
for salt-- because that **** can wash away anything
for farmer's markets and co-ops
for bottles of water and for cookie dough
when my mouth
is the consistency of cotton and my mind is a little bit gone
for warm days in January and cold days in September
for breakfast and for hikes that begin at five a.m.
for summer nights drunk on wine and a little too much fire
for friends who call me 'momma bear' and for friends that call me 'baby bird'
for poems that give you cold chills
and flowers stolen from my neighbor's yard
for skin that smells like the sun and sage
for beeswax candles
and the smell of clean laundry
for days when i wake up and realize
i could have died on a bathroom floor
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 7:17 PM UTC
*this company is heading straight to the top
with our new improved line of fairy farts
soon our catch phrase will be all over the place
a slight touch of magic in a jar
first and foremost a disclaimer though
in the making of farts not one fairy was harmed
we house and feed, take care of their every need
so there's no need for alarm
once we discovered how the ***** could be used
down here on fairy farm
we've had all our men chase after them
capturing bottom barks into a jar
then by hand we transfer them
from pint up to gallon size
to be used all the way from laundry detergent
to a line of makeup that's soft on the eyes
we even have samples of candles
bath and body works just bought the whole lot
plus it runs machines cheaper than gasoline
so far the highest bid is from Exon
we're also in talks of a contract
with a highly secretive govern(mental) agency
who wants all the gas with no questions asked
but on that we'll have to wait and see
in the mean time our workers continue to bottle it up
all the fairy farts from all the fairy butts
it's a job that flatuates deep to the heart
but with this job what's not to love
as you watch the fairies flutter to and fro
hearing the cute little ***** wherever they go
who would have guessed who could have known
how much a business like this would grow*
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 9:12 AM UTC
Yessir I have felonies
and melodies both melancholy and miraculous
paragraphiculous and ridiculous
stole some shows and some thunder
thighs like two day old pudding slap 'em and ride the waves
sike
drink up some dishwasher detergent chased with lead paint
not for the faint of heart just the stupid as ffffffffuuuuuu when under the right noises
and boyses and girlies all singing their swirlies
and twirlin' 'round like pinwheels of tin steel
ten feet off of the ground
hillsides like pill boxes full of coins and coincidences
unmeasured instances of grief and shame without a blame
no face to force hate just mirrors to show fate
and the stars in the sky with their winking teasing ways all
fall to the ground
will be dead within days
but they are not forsaken, maybe only spared
to avoid seeing the moment when sunny didn't share
and all went dark like absence of creation
animation of fears all mixed and respun into dope dubstep
to be grinded and mashed
and spat back up into the trees
May 29, 2012
May 29, 2012 at 7:19 PM UTC