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Akemi Apr 2017
Barbiturate is one of the few drugs capable of killing you painlessly, so of course the state has banned it. Instead we get paracetamol, a ****** over-the-counter painkiller that leaves you in pain for up to five days while your liver and kidneys shut down. Suicide prevention is a ******* joke. Secular appropriations of Christian values that assume life is worthwhile, whether you desire it or not. It’s long been known that rates of suicide rose dramatically with the birth of modernity—techno-scientific paradise for the middle-class which stresses efficiency over existence. New forms of automation, the human body disciplined into repetitious acts, the partitioning of workspaces so that no single worker could operate the whole—so that any worker could be fired and replaced with the minimum amount of training necessary for capital to continue circulating. The body is individualised, scrutinised, and punished by rich kids playing panopticon, so that any mass agitation is coerced into silence through the threat of destitution.

Slitting your wrists barely succeeds and more likely than not leaves you with tendon and muscle damage. Catalytic converters in cars now convert carbon monoxide into harmless CO2 and H2O. Drowning is one of the most painful ways to die. You cannot escape. The state places helpline numbers around suicide spots to treat life after the fact, rather than at the source of suffering. Vocal band-aids, ****** ******* aphorisms that seek to revert you back into a happy state-serving commodity. Things will get better. Life is worth living. Think positive. Alienation is omnipresent. Neoliberal discourse requires you to be subservient to the greater system of capital and the easiest way towards this is the instilment of comfort, of pleasant nullity, the circumscription of emotional capacity and reflectivity. Suicidal thoughts are abnormal, because life is worth living. Eat your packaged food item and watch Netflix.

For a drop into water to be fatal, it has to be 250 feet. Try to aim for your head to maximise brain injury. The most prominent suicide spot around here has a drop of 100 feet. They cordoned it off anyway. Your life doesn’t belong to you. The first time I tried to suicide my mother asked ‘why would you do that?’ as if it was the dumbest thing in the world. The second time, the doctor looked at me in an exasperated manner and prescribed me lots of drugs. Geettt bettterrrr. Nobody cares about you, they simply want you to return to normal. Normality as in serving your parents, serving your friends, serving the state, and serving the market. Normality as in not questioning social norms and institutions. Normality as in get a stable job (i.e. compete against other workers in an exploitative, undemocratic system that values and inculcates self-serving desires), get married (preferably to someone of the opposite *** who is middle-class and imbibes European culture), get pregnant/get someone pregnant (but only once or twice, because anyone who has more children than that is backwards), invest in housing (those students and lower-class families need to learn how the world works; really, it’s a benefit to take their money), watch sports (to instil national pride in your children; no son, we didn’t colonise the Pacific Islands, keep watching the man with the wooden stick hit *****), eat out every week (preferably exotic restaurants), go see the world (preferably exotic locations, so you can be served by exotic people, take in exotic sights, then leave without considering where any of your money has gone to, whether any of it has reached the slums, whether the beach you lay on is accessible to the people living there, or whether it has been privatised by the tourist firm so that only rich tourists like yourself can lie on it), join a club (those capitalists were innocent, it was the indigenous folk that were making a ruckus over the new golf course; it’s not like we’ve been colonising their land and culture for the past three centuries), donate to charity (but never any charity desiring systemic change; that’s crazy), consume, always consume (keeps the economy going; why question the desire for infinite growth in a world with limited land, resources and markets?), replace your phone every year (those poor workers in Asia need our help), repeat to the point of nausea.

The most successful method to suicide is a shotgun to the head; high calibre, slug rounds. Of course, with all these methods, the chance of failing may leave you disfigured, paralysed, mentally disabled or physically crippled (spinal damage, broken limbs, failed organs), with no guarantee that your family, or even your state, will allow for euthanasia. After all, the popular discourse paints suicide as selfish—an irony, considering liberalism places the self first and society second. It is viewed as sinful regardless of context—deontologically detached from anomie, alienation, material deprivation, social pressures, psychological affectations, any cause or structure. Life is worth living. This ignores that the subject is situated in existence. The subject moves through existence to live. Life, then, is the totality of the subject’s interactions. It cannot be universalised into a single state or judgement that merges all subjectivities into a catch-all worthiness. Worth is dependent of the subject.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe I just want everyone to **** themselves, because the world is ****** and the majority of people are ******* it worse. Most people think being nice makes them good. They turn blind to the systems of oppression they partake in. A while ago my mother was asking if I’d heard about the mass suicides happening at Foxconn, the largest electronics manufacturer in the world. This year she showed me her new iPhone. I don’t ******* understand. I don’t understand how people can be outraged at humanity abuses, yet do ******* nothing to help or change their ways. Yes, market solutions are ******* ****, but these commodities are still coming from somewhere, and while capitalism is in place, our money is still flowing back. I don’t understand how people can be concerned about ecological issues, then pour dishwashing liquid down the sink every night, dissolving the gills, eyes, and organs of fish in rivers and oceans. I don’t understand a ******* thing. I feel physically sick most days. I can barely function outside of university, because engaging with real people, in real systems, just reminds me of how careless, worthless, and disgusting they are. When I first turned vegan, my dad simply said plants are living too. Well no ******* **** dad, why didn’t you ask me my reason for turning vegan, rather than simply repeating the dumb **** everyone else says? If you were stuck on a desert island. Well I’m ******* not. I’m stuck on this **** world filled with nice people who don’t give a **** about anything. I’m stuck every week walking the same roads, to the same university, where I become more and more distanced from reality through abstract philosophical theories that no one else cares about. I’m stuck walking through the supermarket every week, to purchase overpriced commodities produced by transnational corporations I don’t support, but nonetheless have to buy to survive. What alternatives I buy are mocked because it's so funny being ethical in our day and age. Because it’s so much more normal eating pies, and drinking beer, and treating women like objects, and affirming nationalistic sentiments of white supremacy, and making fun of ethnic minorities while they’re incarcerated, and beaten, and killed. All lives matter, the liberal conservatives cry out, while doing ******* nothing to help any cause. I don’t understand this world, and I have no desire to be in it if this is all there is.
Joyce Apr 2012
I like hearing you talk about Mozart
Because it means you’re listening.
His piano keys are no different from mine.
I like hearing you talk about Mozart.
I used to play his pieces before I sleep.
His arpeggio is my lullaby;
His laughter, a sombre tune to which I tune
My keys.
There’s no denying that you like Mozart;
Never mind his spending habit.
I sometimes think you are Mozart.
I think Beethoven was fad gone true because
He was deaf to his laughter,
And Schubert was too old, too young to remember
How to step on the pedals
While he tried his many operas
On his baby grand piano.
I think of Mozart in my sleep, in my dreams,
On the toilet, while eating.
I think of Mozart and his young son
And the requiem he stood dying to finish.
Mozart became a
One night stand, and I am not proud of that.
I majored in advertising, God knows why, and maybe
Mozart had something to do with that.
I factored one and two equals the sign of what digit,
And maybe Mozart had something to do with that.
I wrote a story once,
About a starving artist;
Maybe he was the force behind that.
I filled my library with fiction,
And fiction became a running schedule for me.
Maybe Mozart had something to do with that.
I’ve grown roots and sprouted horns listening to Bach;
I don’t think Mozart knew that.
But it was the size of the shoe that never fit me in third grade,
And the roots run as deep as a well of Hope grown asunder.
I knew Mozart would not like that.
And it was holy.
We are holy.
He was holy.
Mozart was holy. Mozart was holy.
Mozart was holier than a cow gunned for meat turned to steak
And corned beef on my breakfast sandwich.
Mozart was holier than a dishwashing paste advertisement
That promises oil free, squeaky clean Experience.
Mozart was more than a religious façade played in the sala
Of some affluent geeky teenager’s house
Where no one bothers to eat the garnishing.
Mozart was holier than Bach, Chopin, Stravinsky, Wagner.
His flute promised a princess to remain priceless.
Mozart was holier than Salieri.
Mozart knew better than Salieri.
Mozart played better than Salieri,
And he got the better of Salieri when Antonio himself said,
“**** that Austrian ****** who plays, lives and howls like a show monkey.
**** this court.
**** this Emperor who can hardly keep together his fingers to play.
**** Austria.
**** Vienna.
**** this era of opera played in German that hardly sells a ticket.
**** this requiem and this boy,
This mad man, pint sized and hardly put together like a china doll.
**** this piano, and to hell with his lovers.”

I saw Mozart once. He waved at me.
I turned and looked away because I was listening to you talk about Mozart.
And I like hearing you talk about Mozart
Than Mozart talking about
Himself.
Jami Samson Jun 2014
Take your thoughts to the sink,
Pile them all up with the plates,
Grimy and greasy
Just like your mind
Which you can scrub all you want
With a sponge or a foam
Since there's no difference
Above sea level,
But the residues will remain
Staining your perfect little machine,
Robotic, malfunctioning,
Because manpower is always better
Than a cold bin
Where it is just you
Echoing your asking everything
Except for what you want
Because cowardice and pride
Are the oil of your psychomotor,
Running,
Missing,
Out on those
Who really don't need you in their lives,
Let alone
To do their dishes,
If ever, in case,
So what the hell are you still doing,
Waiting for the suds to drain,
Don't **** your brain
Like this,
Get a pen
And replace the dishwashing liquid
With real poison.
#53, June.01.14
Michael Hoffman Apr 2013
There is a consumer product demon
in the trash underneath my sink.

The other day, I tossed in a wrapper
from a Quest 20-protein-gram nutrition bar
and a hand reached up to grab it.

Thinking I was daydreaming
I pulled out the white plastic Rubbermaid trash basket;
no hand, but the ¼ cup of Kraft Fast Mac
tossed in yesterday was moving, undulating.

It made a distinct voice-y sound
like “You’ll like Mac-a-lot, so eat me!”
Thinking this was just my overactive poetic imagination
I turned to the sink.

My JetZScrubber had wrapped around a spoon
dancing in circles around the In-Sink-Erator drain
while the Ajax Easy-Hands Dishwashing Liquid spewed bubbles
in unison.

Now convinced I took too much acid in college
I ran upstairs where my dog Mr. Brown sleeps
on his 44” x 36” leopard-print GoodDogBed.
“Howdy, partner,” Brown chimed.
“Sure is a fine day to go for a walk
using that Halti multi-loop leader and Sprenger prong collar.
Yes, I love ‘em.”

I took Mr. Brown to the dog park.
the one with the Safe-Steel chain link fence
and the pine trees without labels.
He pooped in the sawdust and vocalized
in his hound voice.
I could have sworn he said,
“Glad I didn’t do that on the L.L.Bean Woven Nylon Area Rug,”
but I wasn’t sure.

Nothing moved
except the wind in the trees.
and I wondered what to call it.
I think I have completely lost it.  But, if the Flaming Lips can write Yoshimi vs. the Pink Robots, I can write this poem.
Nat Lipstadt May 2013
Going Off To War (a/k/a Washing The Dishes)

When its time to wash the dishes,
I make proper preparations for this serious business,
I strip down to my skivvies (shorts, in a prior generation)
Cause there will plenty blood and gore afore too long
Soap and water flying about, the ceilings and the walls,
Not to mention big, big puddles on the floor.

Multi-colored sponges of sizes varied,
Some Brillo-sided, like extra armor on a tank,
By Dawn's early light, turn the clear water
Into a heaving, breathing soapy concoction.
Woebegone and woe betide, dried and sticky maple syrup,
You are no match for super-strength orange dishwashing solution,
Of the Greeks did praise, a single dollop packs a mighty wallop!

Ain't afraid of any stain, decomposing, half chewed, culinary rejection.
Don't even bother with rubber gloves, cause that's for sissies.
The dirtier the better, cause I love the sounds of
All out war, the rushing water, the futile screams of
Grease departing this world, down the rabbit hole,
My gleaming, victorious sinking of the enemy shipping

You think I am the first to celebrate in verse
This storied fight of right over dirt?

Recall please this famed couplet, for now be known its true inspiration!

"Oh, say can you see by the Dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?"

Though Men Like to Load the Dishwasher (You Didn't Know?)
Is another poem of a similar ilk, when technology is unavailable,
It is fact verifiable and unassailable,
That if you give a man some room and some privacy,
Ignore the shouts and war cries from the kitchen emanating,
Male aggression can best be expiated,
When playing war games in the kitchen, a live action movie,
A video game that never grows tiresome,
And violence is necessary, for the enemy's complete annihilation.

Thank you my dear, no medal need be awarded,
Scored this poem as my just reward.
There is no truth
That my name was Dr. Seuss
In a prior life.
Carl D'Souza Jul 2019
I like to enjoy washing dishes
so it doesn’t become a chore,
as living is for enjoying
and I seek to enjoy every moment
of being alive,
even washing dishes!

But how to enjoy washing dishes?
I focus
on enjoying the experience
of the present-moment,
like meditation.
I enjoy cleaning my dishes
to protect me from disease
and keep me healthy.
I enjoy the feeling
of warm water on my hands
as I rinse the dishes before washing.
I enjoy the rhythm and sound of squeaking
the sponge makes as it scrubs the dishes.
I enjoy feeling
the smooth texture
of the ceramic dishes.
I enjoy exploring the shape
of every dish with my hands as I wash.
I enjoy
seeing my reflection
in the stainless-steel spoons
as I wash
enjoying the experience.
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2021
Of ***** roasting pans and racks and island fog!

if you love me, then you know poems wright themselves when standing, driving, bus riding, love-making and especially when
doing manly battle, ******* ***** dishwashing midst island fog

a passing remark goes noticed and summoned to a
Friday night feast, roasted fowl, wild rice with golden raisins and mushrooms, English spring peas, was it a Montrachet?

for dessert the washing up is obligation mine, a traditional desertion,
separation of church and state, her cooking a church  in which I worship, she states eloquently:
“Unto Caesaria , Render Her the cleanup”

this is hand to hand combat, no dishwasher mechanical
can scrub like the human hand, and with body english,
water hot, but no gloves employed for this is ***** man’s work,
not for sissies, cleaning roasting pans and roasting racks
that are at least twenty years burnt and crusted with a blackened
finish, residue of other lovers and dinners P.N. (pre-nat)

array three kinds of sponges and some human & metallic *****,
no one asking which came first,
the scrubbing away of life feasting residues,
or the poem writing that comes with pre & postscript sleepiness

when I say the dark stains and the grease buildup are
flavor enhancers, am beknighted with starry stares of
“how stupid do you think I am?” and sadly return to the
Battle of Agincourt, the one the American lost….



but they do source poems that flavor life

2020
*sometime last year?
[It's]
Something like
4 a.m. on the third day of Autumn,
riding about a fifth of a gram of some ****-ing fire Sass,
drinking Lagunitas Maximus IPA from an ornate glass goblet
with two batches of homemade chocolate chunk cookies
and Gunpowder/White Peone tea steeping,
jamming some killer music with rather passionate and talented friends;
when, suddenly, a voice of reason:

"Dude, you have work at noon."

And then, it came to me:
"Everything is as it needs to be:
this and every moment is a cosmic joke
and I am laughing through it
and I am laughing with it
and I am laughing as it."


I'll just drink a fuckton of coffee (or maybe just take a nap),
and/or another tenthish of a gram at about 11, regardless;
and bust some serious ***
and confine most of my obvious ******-up-ed-ness to my head
all the while dishwashing to ******* some bomb-*** music
on some ******-*** speakers, backstage,
at a super chill restaurant in my fairly chill foothill Berg
one calm, otherwise ordinary, Autumn lunch;
and it will be so much fun,
so mercilessly ******* amazing
after this
MDA "inspired" all-nighter:

Work
at noon on Wednesday
and then
Band Practice
after work
for a show
in Sacramento
this coming Friday
(Fun Fact: my third live performance ever, second with this band).

This is a form of coping, I suppose.
Some dope-*** ******* cope.

The things I do
to make me happy:
Life is ******* amazing.
Life makes me crazy.

I do this to myself;
this is the Life.

I do this to myself;
willingly and knowingly
and I don't much care;
that is,
I certainly recognize the concept of consequence,
but I give it the one-finger salute from time to time
when the only thing it's really gunna hurt
is poor, mortal, otherwise temporary
me.

This is not self-destructive, though,
it is constructive as ****;
a means of letting go
and moving on:
Empathic, introspective, enlightening;
not to mention a shitload of fun!
Evermore, let it be known:
that in terms of Ecstasy;
moderation
truly is
key.

Don't you see?
The only way to ever know
is to ride it out and to simply be.


All in all,
what a way
to close the ******* book on this Summer
and begin afresh a new one for Autumn;

Autumn's where my Heart is.

I'd say
all that
plus change to spare and share,
is fifty bucks **** well spent,
especially now-a-days
in a place like this
and, moreover;
with friends like these.
It's good to know yourself
and to push your envelope
one iota at a time.
-

THIS MOMENT IS A COSMIC JOKE
LAUGH WITH IT
I show up and plug my music in to the ***** stereo on the rack by the dishwashing station, and the first song that comes on is Misanthrope by the band Death. Just then, the head chef comes back to greet me for the night's work:

"How are you tonight?"
"Death Metal, Sir. How are you?"
"I'm pretty Rock and Roll myself, thank you."

And we both went about our respective business via our respective genres.
It's incredibly nice to be able to see eye to eye, even through airs of facetiousness.
The TV contains budding romances
and break ups
and new lovers and mistresses of
hundred celebrities that made you
believe that the world
is a merry place.

You made songs for your lover
and poems and recited and sing those
on the platform in a social media before an audience
who would believe that
your relationship is a
merry go round one.

But the world is not a merry place
and relationships are not actually spotless like
plates in a dishwashing liquid commercial
on a TV that does not exist for the people in Bakwit
who fled their lands and walked three hours
under the scorching sun as their
three month old infants dived in
thirst and hunger and mothers
and fathers were murdered and gun-fired
in brazen daylight.

The TV contains budding romances
of celebrities that made you recite love poems
and hugots on this very platform
as you continue your quest of finding
a fling or lament on your unrequited love.
You do this
You
do
this
while out there
out
there
the world does not revolve in a merry go round ride.
This poem was performed in a slam poetry event in Quezon City, Philippines. I dedicate this piece to the minorities, to the indigenous tribes, to the bearer of timeless cultures and ancient traditions.
Ophelia O Dec 2017
Please put gloves on
before you touch me
grab them off the counter
plastic dripping yellow
wet from dishwashing
I don't mind
the creaking sound
of plastic trying to stick
to my skin
your touch is dangerous
too full of his memory
no longer can anyone
touch me
please put gloves on
to protect you
to protect me
I'm sorry
Eleanor Webster May 2019
I am surviving only
Through midnight dishwashing
Submerging my amygdala in soapy water
Trying to scrub it clean
Listening to los campesinos! so I don’t have to hear the water rush
Or taste the bubbles on my tongue-
My life only makes sense with a soundtrack.
But in all my favourite albums
There’s a skip on the record
I must have dropped a stitch somewhere in the fabric of my self-determination
In the dam that would have stopped this flood of bitter glitter tears
Maybe there’s something missing in the lining of my soul
Because I’m happy.
I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.
And yet there’s still the catch in my throat
The lingering sense of not seeming like myself
I’m shadowboxing my demons that are smaller than the mountains I’ve conquered
And yet
How do you **** a thing unseen?
A thing that creeps on the edges of my vision
In every blind spot
I don’t know what I’m fighting so I don’t know how to fix it.

I am surviving only
Through midnight dishwashing
And one way phone-call wishes to a god of self delusion
And doubt
Self-sabotaging from the inside out
Relying on chip shop philosophy to get from one minute to the next
And yet I don’t remember what you told me.

It occurs to me
That maybe my demons are dead
And perhaps I am fighting
Myself.
The parts that don’t live up to the lies I tell to sell my soul to every passing stranger.

You see, I know
That there’s nothing to cry about;
Or that there’s everything to cry about
But it’s not the stuff I’d write poems about
War and famine and plague oh disease
This festering something that’s inside of me.

Cut out a pound of rotting flesh to pay my debt to art
Cut out every dead piece of me, cut out my failing heart.
Recently I've been having spells of feeling slightly out of sync with the rhythm of my life- never for very long, never for more than a few hours at a time, but they're there nonetheless. I've been trying to find the source of this feeling of disconnect but I'm coming up empty- I don't have anything to be sad about, at least as far as I can tell. The title comes from the fact that I always say I have no issues then my friends always say that I do, I'm just good at putting on a brave face. I couldn't begin to explain what feels wrong about my brain, but there is just that distinct sense of melancholia that creeps up on me every so often. I wrote this to try and write my way out, and I think it worked, for now.
softcomponent Feb 2014
on minimum wage, you can expect
minimum work, yet it seems miniwage
employers often demand so much. dish
-do is meditation... but 7 hours straight
without a scheduled break (illegal!)
comes to be strangely therapeutic and
unjust. my colleagues are more-than
-decent.. they're especially strange, especially
kind. the no-break hides itself in small-biz
dialect as to owners barely break-even on
weekly basis due, most likely, to competition
from corporate conquistadors like McDonald's
and Denny's.. the evil colonial powers of America
looking to slowly realize manifest destiny in empty
faceless formatted 'buy me's I'm cheaps' my boss
is a failed artist, and one of the first things he said to
me was this: dishwashing ain't gonna cut it if you're
really going to become a writer. I mean, don't up and
quit on me, that'd **** me off and all.. but in the end,
if you're gonna be successful at your art, you have to
be willing to sacrifice everything.
he echoed the
painful decision factor facing every challenged, authentic
soul.. and I knew he was right. someday I would have to
forget security-fear and embrace insecurity-love if I want
to become who I am.

*everything must go.
my boss is not so-much a failed 'artist' as a failed 'writer' / successful 'chef.'
There will come a point when writing will have to become everything to me.
Deana Luna May 2014
piling up
stacks of dishwashing rags and **** dreary eyed
finger numbing click clicks to get it done
clock calling out to the morning scolding
piling up
adding up to a bunch of ****
do the math
chances given taken and failed and smoked up to the very tips of fingers burned and charred and awoken from the bitter numbness
piling up
me. clothes. cigarettes. books of poetry. failures. disappointments. showers not taken. time since i last saw you. higher higher ~higher~
forgetting the social norms and dynamics of how i say this and you that
lying on my bed shirtless defiance you wild little thing
fantasies. ash. honeyrose menthols. bridge bridge the gap between my fingers and your lips. your lips and my lips. your ember with mine. light me.

-this is the most i’m gonna get-
Bogdan Dragos Jul 2021
all right,
that sounded like good advice

Put your room in order first
and then your thoughts

Sure

He started looking around the room
for things that were
to be thrown and things that were
misplaced

There were a few

There was a broken snowboard
on his bed
It had the image of a naked girl
painted along

he slept with it at night
and would often find himself placing
his lips over hers
and licking at her slim, long neck

She had to go
It was time to get rid of her
and break out of this
ridiculous lifestyle

He grabbed it
Looked at the girl for a good minute
and decided to place the snowboard
under his bed

He knelt
by the side of the bed and looked
under

Alas, she had no room in there

There was the forgotten cave of
dead gods
he no longer thought about
And it was full

There were body pillows with
brown stains
Hardened socks
Doll heads
A teddy bear with a hole carved between
the legs
A drinking glass stuffed with
dishwashing sponges wrapped in plastic bags
Magazines with crumpled pages
Pictures printed on A4 paper
Sealed jars that contained small figurines
covered by a thick, brown substance
like melted wax

Those were the gods of nights
long past
They had their share of his worshiping
and had been abandoned
to rot away

There was simply no more room
for the present god
to be disposed of

“Funny,” he said
looking at her from above. “It's like
all the ones who came before you
had passed down their blessings
onto you. I… I am sorry I tried to get
rid of you, love. I’m such a fool! Don’t
strike me down, please. I’ll… I can only
try to make up for it.”

He placed the snowboard back on
the bed and
ripped two pieces from a paper towel
and placed them over the middle
of the snowboard
where the painted girl’s nakedness was exposed

He pulled his pants down
and mounted her

Rubbed his ***** against the
paper towels
and showered the girl’s face with
kisses
while apologizing and shedding tears
for wronging her so much

By the time he came he
felt forgiven
and cleaned the stains that made it past
the papers with his mouth
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bogdan_1_dragos/
Mark McIntosh Feb 2021
Into the abyss
I threw green blood sweat
dripping raindrops
other nightshades calling dreams
from improbable plots
I never read

The black gets darker before dawn
stars fade, the moon dips below the earth’s curve
from my obtuse window
grey shapes move into focus
today the sky refuses to allow
obvious sun

The sinkhole gets bigger from a certain angle
swallowing objects and plans
it’s always ravenous
stealing leftovers from my plate
emptying the dishwashing liquid
plates piling in the kitchen

Morning stretches into afternoon
Whirring of a neighbour’s mower
taming shoots
beheading the weeds that started to flower
after the last time
the manual fell into the depths

That night I remember
a day gone by when the veil fluttered
away from my face
clouds parted and a cylinder of rays
illuminated the abyss to show
how shallow it really was
a name Sep 2021
you sound like ****.
and your voice is too high pitched
or too low pitched
or too monotonous
or too expressive
or too normal

and i don't want to hear from you again
no amount of rubber plugs will drown out all those things you said
all you say
all you will ever say
all you should have said

and i don't want to hear the highway
with it's loud horns and loud engines
i don't want to hear the working class toiling in smoke
the higher class shouting propaganda
the poor singing begs

i don't want to hear the crash of thunder
upon metal roofs
not the squall and rain
eroding cheap houses
not the high pitched tinnitus of the hottest noon
or the infrasound rumble of the coming storm

i don't want to hear your pop music
or your avant garde dishwashing
i don't want to hear your politicians with their shameless lies
your celebrities with their awful acting
your protestors with their empty outcry
your tanks and rifles replacing protest with barbarity

and you
you keep your mouth shut now
i don't want to hear
anymore of your retorts
do not excuse this world for being so noisy
you only make it a decibel more loud

nothing you can do to make it any better
go ahead and rip my ears with the cochlea
and i will hear the tearing flesh
followed by the searing noise
of exposed nerve
one more tumult of another unheard scream
more noises of more pain
louder in quietude
another
another

and no
not even pity
not even peace
not even silence

yes, not even silence

make sure to zip it while you make your way out
even if your thought speaks volumes

leave me be within my pandemonium

i've heard enough from you
and i've said too much
i don't want to hear myself complain anymore
While yours truly sat here
at the desk housing MacBook Pro,
pondering his next idée fixe apropos
for gamut of anonymous readers,
he unexpectedly, noisily and effectually
exploded out rear end;
perhaps ye heard or felt
the ground beneath your feet tremble;
the missus didst not stir in her sleep
yesterday (May 29th, 2023)
when my troubles
seemed so far away.

Jog me memory I did
with a little help figuratively
nabbed, pilfering, ransacking, et cetera
compilation of previously written poems
which involved scrolling thru
screen after screen of feeble attempts
to craft some stellar literary creation.

Worm I going with this line?

Just by a fluke,
I came across a scenario
where humorous embellishment
will (clear as water) diminish credence,
but slight fabrication will help revival
encompassing an outing with then girlfriend,
who eventually became the missus.

Upon the first date (mucho decades ago)
not quite two score
and three and a half years ago
with the gal, whose troth
aye did pledge allegiance to wed
(anniversary inching itsy bitsy
spider like up to
seven and twenty earth orbitz),
we agreed to dine
at an avante garde Tex-Mex eatery

in North Wales, Pennsylvania,
where angels feared to tread
carefully scrutinizing bon appétit
the menu selection,
a touch of Latin lick QED
all American version sans
south of the border cuisine –
Quod Erat Demonstrandum –
translations spit out
in rapid fire Hispanic

by a beady eyed
pierced and inked kid named Ned,
whose couture favored a punkish style
with spiky gelled green hair,
piercings galore and necklace
with a genetically modified
sizable entombed glassy pricey jewelry
encased insect in amber lead,
which beastly fully intact organism
with a miniature grizzly bear like head
momentarily hypnotizing me

pray tell, yours truly nudged himself
out of trance sans this egghead
who made a selection
by randomly landing finger
on an item feigning to be well bred
unbeknownst choice promised
concussive radioactive fallout
squelched with utmost difficulty
nearly impossible mission
to avoid loosing buttuck blast

if belched out the posterior;
**** would have catapulted,
delivered fatalistic deafening roar
wreaking havoc to life and limb
costing countless lives
regarding innocent restaurant patrons,
whose arbitrary choice
to partake of their repast
at aforementioned *****
unnamed restaurant analogous
ending with tragicomic farce.

After this Señor ingested
an ample number of mouthfuls
of beans and rice
that quelled most severe hunger pangs
mine lower gastrointestinal tract,
felt a bubbling and gurgling sensation
played through impropriety struggled
with gaseous mounting perturbations,
what promised to be hot malodorous,
would induce an air raid

from this “wind bag,”
(whose puckered, preserved, pickled, et cetera
and stinky namesake
occupies a place
at the Mutter Museum,
whose saving grace erroneously divine),
when wallet of suede discover herd
visa vis tubby devoid of cash,
thus convenient excuse to beat
the tirade of volcanic eruption
on the cusp of belching forth
found me bolting out the restaurant door
fortunately not waylaid

and madly dashing
(like some fiery comet dancer)
performing a cheeky number
hopping on one foot than the other –
since forceful blast triggered kidneys
to be tapped, thus prancer two step
extemporaneously incorporated
while awaiting available ATM
only to espy debit printout slip
inadequate funds available
zero balance in checking account.

While expulsion of noxious fumes
from thine sphincter courtesy  
brought relief as aye nonchalantly
prior to strolling inside cozy diner,
and slipped into me seat disinclined
to relate eave vents to future spouse,
the ****** aeration and stream of *****
(freed to water secluded copse)
from me magic flute which,
amazingly synchronized
with the Maximus glute
after consuming food
triggered ***** to toot.

Nevertheless, shortfall of legal tender
unfortunately and subsequently found
yours truly shackled,
impressed, forced, et cetera
as dishwashing galley slave
dashed mine coveted
bowed need for highstrung Cupid
annihilating, detonating,
hexing, et cetera
opportunistic spell
to don and trumpet myself
as artful dashing romancer.
ogdiddynash Jan 1
The P Propensity


this benighted dishwasher,
is familiar with the
P Propensity Theorem,
seeing as he
(think grizzled, unshaven guy in the back of the restaurant cleaning plates)

invented it

the need to solve
for the need to P,
while undertaking prep
for the great dishwashing,
is mathematically soluble:

N, the number of ***** dishes
D%, the variable percentage of how *****,
           (necessitating pre-scrubbing, or not,)
M, the meal, breakfast lunch or supper,
  (a modifier of N)
Ba2, bladder age squared)

formula:
if P = N(D%) {M_}
    b  [where M1 is breakfast, M2 is lunch etc.]


is >1,

then

better get
an adult diaper

— The End —