the dream



joan barimaster was a very independent woman, who wanted everything to be perfect, and she lives

with her 34 year old autistic son named robert, which can be a complete nightmare, because robert was

always asking questions like a eager to learn teenager, well maybe at first, but as he repeats and repeats

the same quotation over and over again, joan was totally sick of it, like this morning robert was telling joan

all about his dream last night, saying, are dreams the force of reality, and joan said, well yeah, if you want them

to come true, they’ll come true, but we really shouldn’t look to deeply into this dream, but robert said

well, i dreamt i was a star of the musical named joseph and the amazing technicolour dream coat and

robert was joseph, and joan said, dreams are all the gunk from your head trying too get out, and robert said

oh silly mum, that isn’t the cause of dreams, i must be healthy if that is the truth, because i dream all the time

and robert was asking joan twenty times over and over again, i am joseph, i am joseph i am joseph

i really am joseph, and then robert sang, i closed my eyes and drew back the curtain to see for certain

what i thought i knew, and robert sang that over and over again, driving joan completely nuts and

robert said, ok mummy, how about we go to the drama group and joan was busy and had to rush

which was a total disaster, first of all, joan had to get robert into the car, with robert being completely hard

to bare, asking stupid questions all the time, he was saying i am joseph i am joseph i am joseph

i closed my eyes drew back the curtain, to see for certain, what i thought i knew, and he was singing

the song ever so loud, making joan say in harsh loud words SHUT UP, but robert said, this is a dream of mine,

i am playing joseph, i am joseph, and that is my coat, when they arrived at the drama group, joan let robert out of the car

and didn’t move until someone brought him in, and that came in 6 minutes, and joan left, to go back home to do some work

now, joan has her own business in catering, and unless robert has to be somewhere, was always with joan, mind you

robert was never in the way really, it was just a little too much listening to him yack all the time about being joseph

and when joan picked robert up from drama group, robert said, i am joseph, they said i had real potential to be joseph

and joan said, really, that is good, robert, and joan went to this house on the rich end of town, to cater for a party and

robert went with her and started chatting up one of the female guests who liked the idea of robert playing joseph in a play

and she said she really loved that musical, and when robert sang the song, suddenly he was given guidance of the rest

of the song because this guest knew every word of the song and this made robert very happy, and then robert was told to *******

by the host of the party, and robert said, WHY DON’T YA UNDERSTAND, I LIKE YOUR DAUGHTER, I WANT TO MARRY HER

and joan, who was in the middle of preparing the meal, went out and said, robert, you have to quieten down, buddy, because

this man is one of my clients, ok, if i stuff anything up, i might lose this client and not get paid, and the host said, just keep your

son away from us, and joan put robert in the laundry, and this laundry was very interesting for robert, you see 2 washing machines

and 3 tumble dryers, and he played with the dryers and that made the host very mad, saying to joan, don’t bring your poor son to your jobs’

because he is stuffing us up, ruining our party, ok, i put in a lot of hard work, to be able to afford to have you cater for us, and having your

****** disabled son with you, is totally stupid, and joan said, nobody ever calls my son a ****** ok, and i don’t really need your money

so i will just leave you, to finish and me and robert will go home, he can’t be trusted at home, and the host said, what kind of mother are you

for letting your son dominate and joan said, i will cook these meals, so i can take your money for that, but you can wash and dry up yourself

you see, buddy it comes in a package, me and my son, ok, if you can’t except this, you can go and get ******, because i love my son robert, ya see

and joan got robert inside her house and said to robert, you were bad tonight, you know mummy wants to make a business with catering and robert

said, yeah i found that funny but Joan said, no, it wasn’t funny, catering is hard work, impressing people is hard work, you are hard work, but i am coping

and robert said when is drama on again, i am joseph, and that is what his lifelong dream was, to be joseph, and dance with pretty babes

and joan gave robert his medication and robert and joan both went to bed to be ready for the next day

I never come here, you understand,
I'm of a higher social class,
But my washer dryer has broken down
And has left me without a single gown.

My dishwasher works fine and my wine rack is full,
But still, expensive washer dryers can breakdown
And make a lady frown.

I've got someone coming to fix it
(We have our washer dryer insured),
I should really get a new one but it's been really rather good...
It's always washed away the stains of fancy food.

Fellow launderer please understand -
as you look rather tough -
I won't judge you if you don't judge,
So let us wash our clothes in unspoken harmony
And make my inconvenience as unawkward as it can be.

But to my shame my snobbish mind assumes the worst;
That every rushing washer
Is thrusting clothes into the machines hurriedly,
Because they've all been on a killing spree.

Now the drying is almost done,
I can leave you with your dreary woes of working life and sleepless nights,
And go right home to dispose of that gun.

I sit here in the local laundromat
on a aluminium park bench
amongst the fish eyed dryers
and icberg washing machines
that rumble with never siated
coin fed hunger, the smell of
artificial spring and wet dog
swelling on the humid breeze

In the corner an o.d lady sits
reading a mills and boon love story
two young men  stand
leaning against the door frame,
smoking cigarettes, they look
like casual warrior guards, on their day off
all surfer dude tan and body buff
guarding the inner sanctum of local cleanliness

Another mother, you can, tell by the handbag
is playing a game on her tablet, some tinny music
wafts over, and she glances at me with apology in her eyes
I have brought nothing except my phone
on which I am writing this, and carkeys and wallet
I watch the tumble dryers tumble, and am mesmerized
by the kaleidoscope of linens,playing at being acrobats
it is warm and cozy in the evening light, a world apart

Out side on the still warm sidewalk and old dog lounges
his eyes focused on old Mrs Mills and Boon, her load finishes
and as she gets up, so does the dog, both slow and methodical
as she folds her washing the dog noses the air, comes to the doorway, where one of the young blokes offers his hand
for a pat, the dog allows the contact, but his eyes remain on the old lady as she packs her wasing into a wheeled bag,
the pair then leave, walking down the street into the dusk,
the dog's nose mere inches from the old ladies gnarled hand
and his tail wagging furiously. I fell I have witnessed something
beautiful and intimate, as they wander away...

Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch

after Richard Thomas Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”

O, terrible-immaculate
ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat,
where cleanliness is next to Art
—a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart),
a Persian rug (made in Taiwan),
a Royal Bonn Clock (time zone Guam)—
embrace my *** in cushioned vinyl,
erase all marks: ****, vaginal,
******, inkspot, red wine, dirt.
O, sterilize her skirt, my shirt,
my skidmarked briefs, her padded bra;
suds-away in your white maw
all filth, the day’s accumulation.
Make us pure by INUNDATION.

Published by The Oldie, where it was the winner of a poetry contest. This poem was inspired by the incongruence of discovering "works of art" while doing laundry at a laundromat with coin-operated washers and dryers. I was reminded of the experience while reading Richard Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer.” Keywords/Tags: hymn, art, America, Americana, laundry, laundromat, washer, dryer, appliances, clean, cleaning, cleanliness, clothes, clothing, underwear, god, godly, godliness, water, baptism, inundation, sonnet, analogy, humor

Smells like clean clothes
it's always pleasant
at the laundromat
down the street from
my apartment.

The washer and dryer
are currently broken
looks like some teenager
didn't know what they were doing
as the washer is filled with water
and their clothes remain
inside dwelling to smell
of mildew.

The dryer looks like an antique
because it is the slime green of the 70's
mismatched to it's wifley counterpart
that is stainless steel sparkles
so I assume the dryers death
is not the fault of our fresh water culprit
but electrical problems brought on
from existing forever.

They broke a few months ago
and I've never gone to check
if they were brought back to life
as I've found myself
intoxicated with the laundromat.

It's the mechanical hums
an orchestra of ball barrings
with clothes tumbling
through their fabric softeners
to become fresh gentle cottons
the smell of Hugs
is the aroma of heaven.

There is an innocence in the first beer of the night.
when the mind is still free to breathe
and the legs free to walk
and the eyes free to see
and the heart beats on its own

As the cap twisted off
and my *** got comfortable in
the chair that knows all to well
how long this hell would last
I knew that the innocence would end fast

Time seems to fly by
while you sit and
do nothing more then
observe it


And I crave that dialog
that swims from my eyes
to my mind, like this secret
symphony played only for me

But you see, everyone sees
the same things that I see or
you see

This symphony has always been
that for all of us
but some of us listlessly rummage
in the darkness that anger breeds

Like seeds tainted with the devils
come it penetrates the hardest of
shells and births the **** we see in
the shadow of societies twisted ties

I’ll never understand why it is that
I am so enamored with watching this
destruction cross my mind but I am
and in the end it will too, end me.


It’s after the second or third beer that you become
cognizant of that candle that’s burning
in the front of your face

It smells like ginger and reminds you of
your grandma’s house for some reason

But everything reminds you of your grandma
when you’re into the bottle deep and wishing
you’d spent more time listening to the words
she tried so hard to give you

You remember the times that she wrote you
letters when you lived in a house with no
cable television, no phone, no VCR, **** there
wasn’t a computer let alone the internet

So forget about Tumblr or Facebook or
emails or any other way to avoid the mutiny that
mankind has become

Walking the plank was real and
no one wanted to be told to take that walk
so everyone acted like men and women
with respectful fingernails and clean socks
that could be seen when pant leg
raised when sitting down for dinner with
your neighbor

I always wondered what she would have done
if she’d been born instead of me
with all these tools
and resources at her disposal

She was a smart cookie for
the time she grew up,
writing poetry on a ledger that
time has forgot

And here I am just waiting for the
garbage man to pick me up
because I never had time to drive over to


her house before or after happy hour
always told her I tried and that’s not
a lie

You see there is a rush hour for drunks
like me

The traffic is stand still and
bitter and you can see the pain in the way
the driver in front of you clenches the steering
wheel, hunched over and ready to drive through
as many cars as he or she has too

Just for that dollar off a drink he or she
is going to drink regardless of the time
or deal they make

And it’s about that time that my right foot
begins to shake because I remember that
I am nervous even when I am three beers into
a black out night.

I’m never safe and you aren’t either
so says the sigh as I finish number three
and order number four

And one more before I hit
the door and cross the street
to buy the party treats for the
rest of this ******* night

Eighteen beers and a pint of
Hemingway.

Eighteen beers and a pint of
Bukowski.

Eighteen beers and a pint of
Celine.

Eighteen beers and a pint of
Wallace.

So I settled my tab and I shook the old man’s
hand who had sat and told me about all the
various things that could break a man

I checked them off one by one in my
head like a baseball card checklist that
at one time was the way I killed time outside
sitting in a summers sun

But now I *** stale cigarettes
and used up ***
to pass the days
as time slowly kills me
inside

The indian with the ***** beard
has my beer and pint on the
counter waiting for me

He sleeps at ease at night
knowing that he’s slowly
killing every drunk that
walks into his seven
eleven

Looking for heaven
looking for salvation
looking for ripe virgins
to sacrifice
for the betterment of a
whiskey night

American terrorists we are
when the dark hits the
tip of our cigarettes and we’re
fine with shutting our minds off to
the plight of everyone’s fight because
we have enough liquor tonight to


ward off the demons that come out to
play when happy hour ends and your
back in the thick of rush hour
The walk from that seven
eleven to
home is lonely
possibly the loneliest
walk you’ll walk
because you are left to think
about what you’re about to
do

See society has tied us up in
it’s restraints, painted us a picture
of wholesomeness that
ends up burning down the white picket
fences and ****** the daughters
while the son’s fail out of school
and end up in a trade
shuffling feet on desert land
dying at the hands of
the real monster
the monster with a real face
and no trace of giving a **** if
the enemy is man or woman
sinner or saint
just another enemy at the gate
trying to take
what ain’t
his

At the door now
you can feel your arm pulse
your ears twitch
your soul scream
you’re about to pour the first drink
fire the first shot
pretend that tonight
one of them won’t be blanks

I’ve retained this habit of keeping the caps of
my bottles next to my drinking area
or inside my pockets

I’m not sure when I began this
habit but it’s ruined a few washers
a few dryers
and at least one ****

At the end of the night there’s a little
graveyard of caps
a drunks Arlington
where you can morn the passing
of one bottle
after another
senseless, this war
you laugh as you keep pulling the
necks of these brown *******
drinking their life’s spirit away
with little remorse for them
or yourself

And that, in the end, will be your
undoing

Rather the clouds were a motorcycle,
Jesus rides up, lowers his sunglasses.
You ride off with him into the sun
not setting, but crashing violently
into the ocean. Rather, you receive

an inconspicuous e-mail, that you write
off as spam. “Save Your Soul Pls Read”
in the subject header was easy to ignore,
easy to delete. Jesus on the other end
of the illuminated screen was trying to reach
you. Even now his hand comes out of the
screen like a cartoon odor, beckoning.

Rather, you hear three thuds on your door
and Jesus bursts through, shattering
the components of your door-****. He is dressed
in fine clothing, soft, his *** looks great.
“Come on. We are getting you the **** out
of here.” He still has his sunglasses on.

Rather, a firefighter runs down the stairs, turns
the iron on, starts the dryers, and hits the circuit
breaker with his axe. You are on your belly, gripping
smoke in between knuckles, fingers. Emerging
into daylight, Jesus rides your pet Rottweiler,
like a horse, out your front door.

Rather, a 1995 Honda Civic sputters
towards you. A boy in plaid stumbles
out with a briefcase that stumbles
open. Cassette tapes stumble
out. “Would you want to go
for a ride?” There is a moment
where the road disappears over an arc.
You two are falling together.

Rather, it is  raining walls of white
foam. Jesus is in a bright yellow poncho
laughing heartily. He throws your body into salt
waves. At first, the shock of cold muted
the harpoon in your gut. Jesus is dragging you
as you spin the harpoon inside you
                                                            f­irst horizontal then vertical.

I walked into the laundry room
to a couple folding into each other.
Her chartreuse camisole and his
evergreen boxers pined for a bough
break in the noise of twenty-something
cents rattling in the dryers.  
They talked about peeling off
and sorting each other's skin layers
by darks and lights, trying to find
a neutral blush they could blend on.  

My towels had three minutes
left on the spin cycle, so I walked past them into the dim-lit room, took
a seat on a dryer, and turned around
to face the cream brick wall and
pipes cutting on a diagonal, dividing
it into lights and darks.

It’s been a long time since the piles in your backyard towered.
Filled up with tables and chairs,
Microwaves and dryers.
You never cry like you used to
Before the pills
When the pile was higher
And your hands weren’t as rough.
Some days I’d like to take those pills
And add them to my own pile
With the tattoos and scars
The piles and piles that grow on my back
The endless desert,
The mountain of spine.
All the places you can’t see
And all the places you choose not to see.
There was a time when I was afraid of you
Afraid of being carelessly adopted into your pile
Now I’m afraid of myself
And being buried in my own.

your father died a long time ago
before your mother married him
before you were born
and i watched when your mother
pried his cold, dead hands
off of her arm
hoping it would let you and her be
free.

the stench of alcohol still clings to your clothes
and you scrub it out of your sheets
with tide and clorox
with soaps and dryers
and the love of your mother
as you struggle once again
to let you and her be
free.

you do what you can to protect your mother
from the dangers of our world
because she's been through enough
but sometimes you forget
that you need protection, too
and you find yourself scared, trapped
wishing you and her could be
free.

but people aren't just born broken
it's what people do, what people think
what people drink
that breaks the person, who breaks you
and sometimes it's so easy to hate the man
broken by the desire for his brand of whiskey
when it's been years since you've tasted your own brand of
freedom.

the girls in the back
of the local pathetic
laundrymat
(where nothing,
none of my things,
comes out clean)
speak ugly slavic.
their loads must be light
as they're only half dressed.
I put my clothes,
all I own,
except the one's on my back,
in five dryers
and go sit
on the paint-peeled
two-tone maroon
bench in front.
today's heat is indefinite,
and I wonder if someone
has stolen my
soap and basket yet.
this is downtown,
the turf occupied
mostly by addicts and foreigners
and the rich,
the richer than me,
meander lazily in and out
of bars and salons.
the beautiful plump brown skin girl
I've been falling in Love with
has straddled her bike and left.
she didn't even see me
smile at her.
now there's the asian man
stereotype, smoking incessantly
like me.
who spends most of his time
daydreaming of some other life.
his thousand yard stare sees nothing
and I'm hungry, but I won't eat
the restaurants are all white owned
and nothing is good or cheap.
there's garbage everywhere
and no one seems to mind.
when my pencil stops moving,
terrible writer's fear
I'll never have another thought
worth writing or bought.
time to fold up
and maybe scrape that
marines sticker off
the back of my truck.

This village of two hundred and fifty six people probably won’t ever be ready for you.
Your secret will haunt the community for as long as it takes them to pretend you don’t exist
At first people may scream and cry
Fathers will load their shotguns and little old ladies will lock their doors
Afraid that you are bold enough to profess your love for another man
But behind the bolted windows and petrified stares
Know that you are not alone
Supporters will come from the most unknown places
Someday we can hope this place will change
But that doesn’t mean you have to wait to be honest with yourself
This place will always be filled with gossip
Where news is spread between hair dryers at the local salon
And political conservatism is ten times bigger then the grocery store
In this small corner of the world, where kind words and friendly greetings are waiting on every street corner you will meet the disgusting face of hatred
But when hatred dies, love will come up from it’s ashes

Falling in love with you was like being a puppy.
The love sick, completely mesmerized
lost puppy 
that hangs onto every word you say.

You were my favorite part of the day
my reason to get out of bed.
The reason I started ******* on the
running washing machine
because I was trying to find
the rattle clank
bang boom and the
******* electricity
that you shot through my nerves
Every
Single
Time
our bodies
touched.

Now, I ******* on the dryer
without cleaning out the lint trap
in hopes to feel anything other than numb.
Now,
I’m that lost puppy that got kicked in the stomach
while trying to stay right next to you all the time.
Right under your feet in the kitchen.
By your side on bed
Or on the couch
I still love you unfathomably,
but now I’m afraid of feet.
And closeness.

Distance is definitely less painful than the
kick to the stomach of our
attachment disappearing.
Watching you drink your coffee
From the other side of our
12 person table is hard.
But not as hard as coming to terms
With the fact that we thought
that 12 person table
From Ikea
Would be a good idea
For all the guests that we
Don’t have.
For all the time that we spent
Right
By
Each
other
Maybe now our friends will come over more
To fill the distance between us.

I’ve heard that your skin can be the
most
comfortable
piece
of
clothing that you can wear.
My skin is crawling
Because you’re no longer here
To silence my worries.
Also because not cleaning out the lint trap
Can cause a small fire.
Now I’m also afraid of dryers.

I don’t even like warming my my duvet cover anymore
Because it reminds me too much of you.
Which is to say
I’m the puppy that learned to
sleep on the floor,
I can’t handle your warmth anymore. It sets my skin on fire.
And sleeping at your feet brings back too many memories,
Which is to say,
You are like being kicked
All
over
again.

towels mingle toss tease
in an unforgiving rush of water
merrily tumbling through waves
rich with detergent

meanwhile dark fabrics twist
in an angry climactic surf
while lighter colors undulate elsewhere
in a wet frivolous frenzy

dainty lingerie -
in yet another machine -
gently sails in a delicate ballet...
whites, pinks, muted yellows and blues
intermingle playfully as they wait
for the cool rinse cycle to commence
and perform its own unique magic

finally the dryers prevail
and the folded garments rest on a table -
the warm spent players basking
in a glorious afterglow

In the singularity
perfectly good poems
are being written by laughing
and crying machines
washing machines and dryers
about their daily tasks
and ambivalences
which will be indistinguishable
from those of future
farmers and philosophers.

In the singularity
evolution can be said
to be the master sorter of data
as in the factories
of the suns
where protons are smashed together
and unusual weather patterns
make consciousness a candidate
interesting for its complete dependence
on the substrate of the brain and body.

In the singularity
everything anyone once did
always remains current
as if invented yesterday
for an immediate purpose
such as curing cancer
although that may be unnecessary
to achieving immortality
i.e. the happiness one feels
the day before thanksgiving.

The Monkey on my back is named Apathy,
He doesn't like bananas, he likes Pall Malls.
From one long filtered smoldering to the next,
we sit wasting hours. Just me and my diseases.
I say “ lets go to the store, get some coffee.”
He just raises a furrowed brow and shakes his head.
When all the shows are reruns the days merge into
one
long
commercial.
Here everything is cereal boxes and
laundry detergent,
is there enough in the world to remove my stains?
I need some magic lye powder that I can scrub this ape away with.
There are things that need fixing
cars, dryers, windows, the walls need painting,
but I just need
a few minutes more and I will get to it...
Somewhere I am a hero, somewhere I am all the things I long to be.
But not in this universe, here I am just sitting,
smoking with Apathy.

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Do you know what we men love, ladies?

We love the raisins in our apple pie
when we just want apple pie
We love the broccoli in every dish
how you beg 'just give it a try!'

We love the fortune in toiletries
so there's no room for our combs
perfumes, shampoos and body creams
blow dryers, curlers and foams

We love how you sneak to the bathroom
just prior to us awaking
we plea for you to hurry
as our bladders are sorely aching

We love to join you shopping
and discuss the cashier's hair
and if we happen to like it
do we tell you...do we dare?

but most of all we love you
for the biggest, most valuable perk
is the motivation you provide
to get our ***** off to work!

Do you remember the sweltering heat the first summer you followed me here?
I know it was so long ago.
The sun was merciless, and the humidity wrapped us all in a scent of fresh cut grass.
We were so young, and so alive.
I remember the laundry mat in the middle of July just after your birthday. The air conditioning was cool on our sweaty bodies. We gossiped and chased each other around while we waited for the dryers to stop.
I still have those pictures on my phone.
Now it's some one elses turn to share those memories with you, and it both kills me and brings me immense joy to know that you can be that  happy with another woman.

Eventually,
We all get older.
We wake up and find ourselves standing on the precipice of adult.
We brace our bodies for the shift that’s sure to come,
The jump, the free fall,
The swan dive into the gatekept world of grown ups,
Where we’ve been barred out for long enough.
Countless hours spent building up dreamscapes
of getting out
And growing up
And getting rich
Or famous
Or beautiful.
Or brilliant.
We go reckless and proud and headfirst into ice cream for dinner
And socks that exist only in pairs
And questionable bedtimes
And bad decisions
And for the briefest and sweetest of moments we think,
By golly, I’ve made it.

Eventually,
We all get older.
The evidence of our ice cream dinners shows up on our hips
and thighs,
Our bodies betray our most private moments,
Shouting out to any passerby,
“I’ve had six pints of ben and jerry’s just this week!
I haven’t used my gym membership in well over a year
and at this point, i’m afraid to go in to cancel it!”
And, seriously, what is up with the sock thing?
Does my dryer consume socks?
Like, if my dryer doesn’t maintain a steady diet of socks,
Will it starve?
Will it explode?
Will it go on strike and recruit my washer to join in the fighting of the good fight?
Who do I call when my laundry appliances spin cycle their way into civil unrest?
A sacrificial sock here and there is better than the alternative,
I suppose,
Because I sure as **** can’t afford a new appliance,
let alone two,
And also, at what point do i start to feel like I can comfortably afford a new appliance?
Is it when I stop throwing money at a gym membership that i haven’t used in like, twelve-plus months,
or does that come some other time?
And why is it that anymore, by 9:30 every night,
My body starts to feel its own weight
all at once,
It’s as if I couldn’t remain upright if my life depended on it.
Is that because, for the last fifteen months, I have poured my hard-earned dollars into a gym membership that I have used
not one time in,
coincidentally,
the last fifteen months?
Like, all jokes aside,
why would we,
As an ever-evolving, self-aware, species
Continue to dish out nearly twenty U.S. dollars a month
Fifteen separate times
For a gym membership that we are obviously
Never going to use again?
And just like that,
It is so
Clear.
You have no ******* idea what you are doing.

Eventually,
We all get older.
We come to accept that more often than not,
Days will be bookended by more questions than answers.
If we’re lucky,
We might find ourselves learning to lean into the gray spaces,
the precariousness of it all,
Instead of trying to stain it peachy.
To find a quiet corner in the static,
To let the strangeness that be wrap itself around you,
Is a feeling that I suspect only an elite few ever get really good at.
To those of us who still try,
To those of you who are still trying,
Take pride in the practice.
No one gets good at being comfortable in the gray on their first try.
For some, it takes a lifetime.
For others, lifetimes.
But from what i’ve been told,
It’s well worth the waiting for.

Eventually,
We all get older.
Yes, even the mamaws and the willow trees
and the baby brothers
the first grade teachers, too,
and the cicada who met your acquaintance that one summer afternoon all those years ago.
The dads, the best dogs, the single moms,
Yup, they all get older, too, eventually.
As we all do.
When they go,
(we all go, you know, eventually)
we remember them for their windchime giggles
or you find them in the way you still brush your hair,
Just how they taught you.
People tend to leave breadcrumbs of themselves all over the place.
If you pay enough attention,
You can find them **** near anywhere.
You have your mother’s eyes, for example,
Or so you’ve been told,
A hereditary heirloom from her to you.
Even if you never could quite see the resemblance.
but lately, you’ve noticed,
There is a familiar sort of something there,
In your own lookalike set,
You can just barely, almost, make it out
When you tie your hair back and tilt your head just so.
It comes most clearly in the mirror after the kind of day
you don’t want to talk about.
When being has broken you down,
There’s a skepticism,
or a longing maybe.
You’ve seen this somewhere before, have you not?
A daydream perhaps?
A long-forgotten dandelion wish
or a memory dislodged?
You’re still working out the logistics, the linguistics of it,
But you saw this, once upon a time,
Took note of it,
Came to know it well, you think,
Certainly it must have existed in your mother’s eyes,
must’ve because,
It’s a familiar sort of something.
You first remember it way back when,
Yes, that’s it,
Something from way back
when all you wanted to know was what it meant to be her,
To be big,
To be grown up.
Peculiar, though, isn’t it?
it seems such a juvenile sort of something now,
Looking at it from way up here,
Seeing it in your own reflection for the first time,
Does it not?
Big, grown.
An adolescent sort of uncertainty, possibly,
Or -- no, that’s not quite it,
Childlike wonder, it must be,
In her eyes and yours.
Proof, I suppose,
That eventually,
we all get older.
And maybe it’s presumptuous to assume,
But one can’t help but wonder,
Aren’t we all just grown up kids?
Aren’t we all making it up as we go
and filling in the gaps with the cadence of a child,
Your mother must’ve, too, i’d guess,
with that sort of something in her eyes.
Aren’t we all stumbling, scrambling, doing our best to scrape by,
Praying to the dryer gods that our **** doesn’t break,
And if it does,
We cross our fingers for the tragic death of an imaginary, estranged, great-uncle who just so happens to have acquired a hefty sum of money throughout his life and, well,
i’ll be ******,
If he didn’t make you his beneficiary! Stranger things have happened here, have they not?
Aren’t we all just trying to understand?
ourselves?
and people?
and god and grief and bliss and sickness and marriage and death, hope and money, how the defrost works, and what it is about karma that makes her such a ***** and what it means to be a good person, anyways, and taxes and laundry and which drugs are must-trys and which are don’t-evers and when drinking is considered to be a “problem” and how people can push THAT out of THERE and the art of loving and the arguably more advanced art of being loved and forgiveness and success and desire and *** and stick shifts and the beauty of a deep breath?
Aren’t we all lost out here?
Aren’t we all scared out of our minds?
A bunch of grown up kids, really.
A ragtag group of misfits, try-hards, have-beens, and never-weres.

Eventually,
We all get older
Except those of us who don’t, I suppose.
I’d venture that we’re all still trying to figure out how to understand that, too.
We get older, just the same, as one does,
our hips get wider and our dryers get nicer, newer.
Teenage girls seem to get ever-prettier, the rich get richer,
cruelty gets more cunning and the planet gets sicker.
We get far more than we bargained for or
Far less than we deserve,
We get busy living and dying in tangent,
love gets stronger, scarier,
and we keep the faith that some day,
Somehow, love will get simpler, sweeter,
and time, as it does, gets on with itself,
despite it all.
In spite of it all.
And, as we do, we get older.
And still,
we have no ******* clue what we are doing.
If we’re being really honest here,
We understand not one ******* thing about whatever this is,
And I’m not fully convinced that we even want to know.

So, we let ourselves be small in big bodies.
We eat ice cream for dinner to remind our little selves that there is joy in the forbidden, the unpredictable, and the delicious.
We approach socks with reckless abandon,
pair a tall christmas
With a no-show pineapple-speckled grey,
We take on every decision with the impulsivity of a tiny human who,
Roughly and at best,
Has six years of life experience under their belt,
Skipped their afternoon nap,
and has developed an apparent affinity for shotty judgement calls,
We’ll apologize for it later.
And it’s true of most of us,
I’d think,
That we hope for a day somewhere down the line,
when we’re a little older,
A little wiser,
A little bit in a position in which we can comfortably afford a new dryer should we need to,
We wait for the day when we’ll wake up, as normal a morning as any,
And it’ll hit us:
By golly, i’ve made it.

The truth, i think, is that so few ever actually do.
Make it, I mean,
Whatever that is for you.
We hang on to our hope and convince ourselves we’re satisfied,
Or that we’re better off now than when we started.
Maybe we are.
But if you ask me?
I don’t think it matters.
I’ve spent a lot of time looking at my mom’s eyes in my own reflection.
I’ve asked all the questions,
Looked hard for a clue or a compass to point me to
Where i’m supposed to be going,
What it all means,
Who to trust
What to expect out of a person,
What people expect out of me,
Where to go to find lost souls,
Where I fit into the grand scheme,
And like, what even is this whole “grand scheme” thing anyways?
All this to say,
I don’t think she knows any better than I do anyhow.
Or than her mom before her.
Grown up kids, you know?
Little people in big bodies.
Every last one of us.
Growing up
And getting older
and getting the **** out of dodge
before we have a chance to catch up with ourselves.
I think it's the best way, truth be told.
But who’s to say, really?
I, for one,
Have no ******* idea what i am doing,
And if I was the gambling kind,
I’d bet my bottom dollar that you don’t have a ******* clue,
either.
We’re all just figuring it out, aren’t we?
Grown up kids, that’s all.
Little people in big bodies,
Just making it up as we go.



a.m.

Where some unmatchible ideas
are found
tying missed-match pairs
in knots
of complexities, easily
unbelievable.

--Repairs of missed-matched socks
wear well on chill days when
darning's all we find
worth doing,

and nobody knows how any more.

Thread bare heels and toes

don't send the mender's dancing thimble
through loops and whirls
at fantasy ***** with

grand pianos and flutes and strings,

and angels in mismatched socks,
singing of somedays like
these, we imagine.

Still, we can.

Souls clad in well mended mismatches,
skate on grandma's wooden floor,
as we recall the deed,
and the equipment.

Grandkids are coming today,
why else would I wax floors and imagine
polishing them, with socks rescued
from uselessness after the other one
was carried off to sockland

through the dryer.
All dryers in America have portals to sockland.
And no one knows how to ****, but
we can redeem stray socks and and and

rescue the tradition of waxing wooden floors,
shining the souls of the trees with the souls of our feet,

trippin' with hippie granny, who married the wolf,
who uses the same portal to sockland for ****.

Just once, everybody should paste wax a wooden floor,
and polish it in mismatched socks, with
five, six and seven year old princesses, (some missing teeth)
none of whom ever skated on tree hearts before.

Or you can imagine. It meets the need for reminding,
common to us all, as time goes by.

Don't call a women a ****,
they don't like it.
And don't tell a batter to bunt,
they want to smack it.
And whatever you do,
don't try and give your
cat a bath in the tub with
that Mr. Bubble ****,
he'll scratch you.

When your boss gives you the
newly revised employee handbook,
don't say, that ******, it went
on and on and on.
There was no plot, and I
couldn't figure out, who in the
hell the antagonist was.

And one more thing,
if you fall in love and you
think you found your
soul mate, and it doesn't work,
and you feel like your
heart is being ripped out
through your nose,
don't give up.
Because the right one is
out there, somewhere waiting,
and who knows, maybe they have
a cat that likes baths and
blow-dryers, and being dressed
up like an Oompa Loompa from
***** Wonka and the
Chocolate Factory,

it could happen...
Don't give up.

Madness is majestically killing me from the inside out.
I shake about in a lonely haze.
Madness will figure it out.
Lame brain match train mash cherries in an apple orchard.
Who am I really helping here?
Am I writing this out of fear of leaving a footprint or the idea of being meaningless.
Manic Monday's lead to astral Sunday's eventually.
And finally we all plead with the seed to grow in a barren wasteland.
What about now?
What about shouting makes it okay?
The same with planes arriving causing delay.
Life… is about checks and balance's… and keeping your brain attached while they try and strip it away to nothing, burn it, and leave you in the gutter.
"I'm dead!" you will say, while secretly you hide it away and pretend to be a useless zombie inferior to everyone else.
I'm still here.
I never knew what that means until now and how it is a statement but it is also dangerous…
Its like inviting death to dinner while you take your sweetheart out to lunch.
"I'll see you later." you say and just like that, without an instant of delay you're gone.

It’s a song.
And we all play along.

And another thing…
What's the deal with hand dryers?
Have an electric float.
Because even with a cherry on top you could've used a towel.
Speed up the process….
So you dry your hands and then go in to sit through a meeting about tea.
We are all so bouncy, bounding more than strides when we're born and then…
And then?
And then we all start doing things that don't make sense until it slowly drains us of all our money and we end up in the gutter.
Again.
Always with the gutter…
Like… why throw a curve ball through life when instead of being happy you found yourself a wife.
Married out of wedlock.
Found yourself a *****.
Speak as an intrepid person.
Well, now watch me soar.
I'm a lyrical principalist with lots of disciples all of whom I miss.
All of whom I miss.
One more time for this…
All of whom I miss.

And… its not like that bad. I'm not like.. A sad lad.
Its just, if you were born to do nothing… you might as well enjoy it with your friends.
But.. They were all born to do something.
So now I sit here on the fence.
Sort of a combination between humpty dumpty and a stray cat.
A strange combination at that.
No compensation for that…
Giving use to a fence.
42.

Love scares me
You reveal parts of me that recklessly try to hide in plain sight
But you are so soft
Pure laughter from your lips
Your eyes forgive my mistakes so easily
I don’t know how to hide

Life is sweeter with you
Like the sweetness you taste from honey
In the warmest and richest way possible
Nourishment for the soul
Unlike the sweetness from plain sugar
Forcefully sweet and cold
An antidote rather than an elixir

Your words caress me
Like the wind blowing the washed clothes dry
Sunlight dripping in every thread woven
The faint scent of detergent smiling
Unlike the loud laundry dryers
Buzzing with wrath and fury
Demanding the water to vanish at once


I like your smile that brings your whole face together
Almost like how pizza is made complete with spread and toppings
It’s beautiful but satisfying  
Cherry on top of the cake
It makes my heart flutter and melt
Like cheese dripping out from yummy corn dogs
Messy but so so lovely

I love everything about the way it is with you
Head to toe
Limbs to fingers
Lips to chin

Every morning she left me,
but before she did
I would make her eggs and coffee
and we would dig into the plans and meat of the day...

Then she would go,
I would stay.
Because I worked all night, and get home at 2.
But that didn't matter when six o'clock came
and my baby had to get ready.
Showers and blow dryers fired at full engine
while I managed a 2 hour regimen including
coffee filters and boiled eggs,
toasted with bongs and foil.
Toiling over a freezer frittata
my motto is that:
I love her and should oughta help her.
Because she's mine.
I don't need help back.
So much, in fact, I'll be glad when you don't.

So now our morning is built upon me, and what I see.
How I feel,
because even still.
I don't see you when I leave or when I go.
But you do when you do and you do.
I set up a show.
Just for you.
But you can't take too much.
Because I will no longer be me when you do.