"dusters" poems
THEY were calling certain styles of whiskers by the name of "lilacs."
And another manner of beard assumed in their chatter a verbal guise
Of "mutton chops," "galways," "feather dusters."
Metaphors such as these sprang from their lips while other street cries
Sprang from sparrows finding scattered oats among interstices of the curb.
Ah-hah these metaphors-and Ah-hah these boys-among the police they were known
As the ***** Dozen and their names took the front pages of newspapers
And two of them croaked on the same day at a "necktie party" ... if we employ the metaphors of their lips.
6.5k
Old Cowboys, forts and shootouts
Black for bad and White for good
With a spinning canvas background
And cactus cutouts made of wood
The desert sits behind them
Fifty yards away at most
The heroes don't ride horses
They sip drinks and sit and boast
About their celluloid adventures
singing songs all dressed in white
While behind them in the background
The stunt men do it right
A canvas background rotates
Through valleys, hills and streams
While the hero rides his deck chair
And the director yells and screams
Central casting fills the tribes out
With Italians, and made up stock
While our hero stops an avalanche
Of fake paper covered rocks
Cardboard Cut out Cactus
And heroes smiling in the sun
Most have never seen a cowpoke
Let alone shot off a gun
But, it's magic when it's finished
the dusters up there on the screen
All the fakery and snake oil
Are all hidden, never seen
The white hats beat the black hats
The hero sings and gets the girl
And the background on the spindle
Is still spinning, watch it whirl
A celluloid adventure
Cowboys no where close to what they were
But..watch the next show for a nickel
And don't forget your spurs!!!
Oct 5, 2012
Oct 5, 2012 at 9:22 PM UTC
Motel moons, left of face
In room 12, a thing named Grace
She's missing ***** & he's missing eggs-
Band-Aids on the neck
Royal Hawaiian
Big Ad's A-Flyin' (Bye!)
Cowboys in black dusters
And aliens in track suits
Drinking coffee with the common man
Blue-hooded and faceless, walks by again
Third-reel-real headshot,
Kept as a souvenir by an FBI actor
A man can do a lot with his chin
Uncle Sam's tonic & gin
Not made to be an Earthling
Not fit to be an alien
Stars are flickering lights
On Big Empty nights
Three days in the desert
Minus pie sauce in the sky
What's in the blue suitcase?
Why the blue bowling shoes to get to that place?
"Just get on the bus, Gus...
... And get yourself free"
Blue-sky clouds on black
Whipped cream & jack
The United States of Aliens
And a Person in a circle
Nov 25, 2011
Nov 25, 2011 at 9:19 PM UTC
When, like a running grave, time tracks you down,
Your calm and cuddled is a scythe of hairs,
Love in her gear is slowly through the house,
Up naked stairs, a turtle in a hearse,
Hauled to the dome,
Comes, like a scissors stalking, tailor age,
Deliver me who timid in my tribe,
Of love am barer than Cadaver's trap
Robbed of the foxy tongue, his footed tape
Of the bone inch
Deliver me, my masters, head and heart,
Heart of Cadaver's candle waxes thin,
When blood, spade-handed, and the logic time
Drive children up like bruises to the thumb,
From maid and head,
For, sunday faced, with dusters in my glove,
Chaste and the chaser, man with the cockshut eye,
I, that time's jacket or the coat of ice
May fail to fasten with a ****** o
In the straight grave,
Stride through Cadaver's country in my force,
My pickbrain masters morsing on the stone
Despair of blood faith in the maiden's slime,
Halt among eunuchs, and the nitric stain
On fork and face.
Time is a foolish fancy, time and fool.
No, no, you lover skull, descending hammer
Descends, my masters, on the entered honour.
You hero skull, Cadaver in the hangar
Tells the stick, 'fail.'
Joy is no knocking nation, sir and madam,
The cancer's fashion, or the summer feather
Lit on the cuddled tree, the cross of fever,
Not city tar and subway bored to foster
Man through macadam.
I dump the waxlights in your tower dome.
Joy is the knock of dust, Cadaver's shoot
Of bud of Adam through his boxy shift,
Love's twilit nation and the skull of state,
Sir, is your doom.
Everything ends, the tower ending and,
(Have with the house of wind), the leaning scene,
Ball of the foot depending from the sun,
(Give, summer, over), the cemented skin,
The actions' end.
All, men my madmen, the unwholesome wind
With whistler's cough contages, time on track
Shapes in a cinder death; love for his trick,
Happy Cadaver's hunger as you take
The kissproof world.
3.4k
i'm not really sure
if i gauge attractiveness
on a real scale
but there's most definitely
a certain quality
that seeps into my
pores and in my marrow
and through my veins
that attracts me
cause his eyes are like
old books from the deepest
sections of the library
and his eyelashes
are like feather
dusters tickling
my heart in a delightful
fashion and his freckles are
reminiscent of drops
of stray ink dripping
from thunder clouds
it's an odd sensation
sensational
that's all i can use to
describe this
imploration of
my mind
Sep 14, 2012
Sep 14, 2012 at 11:02 PM UTC
I found you
lone brick, of a million, one part of a mortared whole
your brothers now buried by time, without benediction
progeny of clay, shale, you were born in a kiln as hot as all creation
dragged to this plain by spoked wheel and mule--sweat of the honest illiterate
long before the dusters blew the crops to hell, and Tom Joad's kin to the promised land
the mason who laid you in a proud straight row is now in the ground too
not a mile from you, where the county put him the hot Friday a man set foot on the moon
the bricklayer’s days with the trowel long past, his memories of you, your place in all weathers interred with him
I found you , and you are the man’s legacy, he yours
Feb 19, 2018
Feb 19, 2018 at 4:09 PM UTC
Standing beside a tree, near the warm and calm sea.
I pondered at the wonders of the life beneath, was it a heath or sheath?
Dazzling on a rock, grappling me along,
greeting with pleasure, leading me to the treasure
- a mermaid
The squid and the jellyfish came with a glow
paved the way with light, like the winters moonlight.
Deep underneath, like cold and dark night.
Shivering all the way, with the mermaid I go.
Anemones covered me like a blanket of snow,
and then let me slow.
Wading through the sponges,
On a strong coral, by the brittle sea star,
without a quarrel I sat.
The feather dusters moved with ease
making me freeze.
Came a shark,
very near and I trembled with fear.
Soon with a lift, away it shift.
The octopus and the butterfly fish,
what a splendid sight!
With pleasure I write.
Cared and shared my little wonderland,
In the lovely hands
away from the thunder lands.
Mar 19, 2021
Mar 19, 2021 at 4:38 AM UTC
I am
A feather duster.
Clogged with fears
and
Fluffy cobwebs
How odd
There is no more me
Only more
It.
A thing
a material kind of demeanour fling
slash
overthrowing one night plastic wonder
And I have found
myself
hiding beneath oblivion
and
a cheap stock price
Renewed,
exchanged
changed
paid with loose change
a chain of recurring events
Money making
plays me out of my
hiding spot
And I gross
in all vastness
the price times infinite
of what it took to create me
The other feather dusters
they
would be ashamed
to have me sitting with them
Because I cannot begin to
stop wanting more
More than an item of plastic.
a.l.h
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 3:10 PM UTC
in Ohio, Mother
hung our laundry humming,
clothespins in her mouth
in Texas, she made my father
buy a dryer after angry wet sheets whopped her face
more than one blustery afternoon
scarcely a score before
Panhandle winds were often roiling clouds,
black as charcoal, laying waste to everything
that grew and breathed
old men at the feed store talked
about the dusters from back then
and about every drop of rain,
every white flake that fell
I missed going barefoot
and fast learned to hate goat heads,
and all thorny things that thrived
in that flat land
Mother despised the hot winds almost as much
as the cool stares she got from the church women
whenever she opened her mouth, revealing
she wasn't one of them
Mother ended words
with “ing,” the extra consonant considered
superfluous at best, blasphemous
to some
men and women both
sounded to me like they had grist
from the silos in their mouths
my father had lived there
as a boy, swore he would never return
the dreaded dust still clinging to his clothes
when he left for the war
oil money brought him back
but only long enough for his skull
to be cracked dead by hard pipe
his insurance settlement
bought us a place in the Buckeye State
as quick as the lid flapped shut
on our mailbox
Mother wept little
until our first night back
in Ohio, when a blizzard knocked out
the lights, and our two candles burned flat
in the cold
my uncle brought bread, butter
and warm soup, which we ate in the gloom
while Mother told my father's favorite brother
how much we loved the Texas sun
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 1:37 PM UTC
6 o clock dandelion
fluffy wish wand fairy dusters
filled the fields where
wild flowers fizzled
over a rough green sky.
Jan 5, 2012
Jan 5, 2012 at 12:47 AM UTC
Pants have yellow ice in trucks of hills. I'm in a purple suitcase and the trees are poking my **** Goosebumps aren't feather dusters anymore. Foot warts in my hair and yarn on my nose. Water is dribbling from my power line and my calf is aching. My shoes are covers in slime and my toes are twitching. The flag stands there in front of us and we are all slapping our dogs. The sun poked our cheeks as the as the lights went flapping away. Pots went eating a way leaving the chairs bird less. gas had loud books on their foreheads and was talking in a cheetah. Cows ate my blanket of clocks. Bags killed my sauce pick. Mills have ***** roofs.
Apr 30, 2017
Apr 30, 2017 at 2:46 PM UTC
Grandma read her doctor's orders aloud
over a fresh cigarette.
Hummed a nameless hymn
of white clouds
as she recited the litany
of prescribed don't do's:
heavy lighting,
bending over,
long periods of standing.
This is how you convince
your grandchildren to clean your house
on the first day of Christmas vacation.
Grandma's hands are too full
to hold brooms and dusters anyway.
They are too busy balancing prayers
born between the flickering knees
Of her dust orange lighter.
And her patron saint has four legs.
All of which can be found
tattooed across the chest
of a Marlboro carton.
Grandma is a religious woman.
So she prays religiously.
Says the body is a temple
and hers is an old testament book
of nicotine sacrifices.
A fiery copper skin
of crop circle veins.
Each wrinkle a story.
Each story ending in flames.
For 5 decades
she has been burning.
And I am too old
to pretend the ash is invisible.
Too young to watch it
cuddle the curves
of her lips
and call it anything
but sacrilege.
And this is why I need
to vacuum the rugs.
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 11:14 AM UTC
Julie followed Benedict
from bookshop to bookshop
then they went in a cafe
on Charing Cross Road
and sat down
by the window
and ordered two coffees
and lit up cigarettes
how's it going
at the hospital?
he asked
gutty
she said
boring my ******* off
I shouldn't be there
she inhaled deeply
on her cigarette
once you're off the drugs
you won't be
he said
I am off the drugs
she looked at him
well most of the time
she said
what do they say
at the hospital?
they said my parents
want me to stay there
until I'm cleaned off
she said
but you're out today
he said
yes on good behaviour
she said
any sign
I've taken anything
then I'm locked in
and Daddy said
they'll have me sectioned
if need be
he has doctor friends
who will oblige
and him and Mother
being doctors themselves
it won't be difficult
she said
Benedict watched
as the waitress
brought the coffees
and put them on the table
and swayed off
in a Monroe fashion
we could take in a film
if you like
he said
no I don't want
to be stuck
in some smokey cinema
she said
I want to be out
in the fresh air
and see London
ok
he said
what about having a stroll
along the Thames Embankment?
then after take in
a look around an art gallery
you are full of fun
she said moodily
ok where then?
he said
some room someplace
and a good ****
she said
the word hung in the air
like a dark cloud
in the cafe
people gaped at her
I think they've got
Lichtenstein at the gallery
this month
he said
Pop Art stuff
he added
she pulled a face
then drew on her cigarette
you're in a mood
he said
maybe you should
have stayed at the hospital
and twiddled your thumbs
on the ward
she stared at him
releasing smoke
from her mouth slowly
ok the gallery
isn't too bad an idea
she said
but I'm gagging
for a fix
my body's screaming for it
she went quiet
and sipped her coffee
he looked at her
sitting there
dark brown hair
tied by a ribbon
her eyes staring
at the table
her fingers holding
the cup and cigarette
he recalled the time
at the hospital
when they'd managed
to be alone
in the small broom cupboard
and the quick ***
in the dark
between brooms
and dusters
and buckets
he smiled
what you smiling at?
she said
cupboard love
he said
she laughed
yes that was good
she said
unexpected too
and any moment
some poor cleaner
coming for a bucket
and seeing us at it
she stubbed out
her cigarette
in an ashtray
on the table
and they went out the cafe
and back along
towards Trafalgar Square
to the art gallery
to see what was there.
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 2:32 AM UTC
i can't explain the way this makes me feel
i don't believe; you told me it wouldn't hurt me if i didn't
it still hurts me
so i let go, i let it leave
still it does me harm
and all those preachers
with their talk of gods and spirits
i only believe in one kind of ghost
the echo of existence
and demons of history
mine, yours, theirs
let it go, let it leave
but there's still movement in the mirrors
so drink my coffee like it's morphine
and numb the pain with sleeplessness
god forbid a nightmare come to life
stay awake
they'll do no harm
i dream of him in shades of blue
yellow, purple and green
and knuckles dusters do their job,
sweeping dirt away with a single touch
because i
am a filthy stain on your best gown.
he was being thoughtful, cleaning up a mess
it's all my fault, really
i inspire rage and discomfort
and i try to let go, but
i'm the one that needs to be left behind
and if you let me go, if you let me leave
i can't do you harm
don't believe in me,
believe in your ghosts
exorcise me, please, and maybe i'll sleep
no more morphine, no more bloodshot eyes
just a place to lay my demons to rest
bury them with my body
almost, i'd find myself blessed
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 4:23 AM UTC
I can not put my hoover down , I would rather make love too my hoover, more than a man.
My dusters I fluster
As I rub over my skin
I'm clean, there clean I'm excited with mr sheen.
Well , with Mrs fairy I better not go there,I found her very scary,
I love cleaning it excites me within,
When I do my dishes I have a massive grin.
With my mop I can reach every spot
I had Mr flash on my floor also up against the door.
I have o.c.d. you see, I just love to clean , it makes me want too scream
This is a obsession a thing I have too do
putting my house write how is dose so excite. I love cleaning.
Feb 1, 2018
Feb 1, 2018 at 11:45 AM UTC
Cerise dyed her hair blonde
in a strip running from a point
midway abover her eyes,
straight back, medially bisecting her head.
Why not? Her witchcraft encounter group
encouraged her to go for it
and certain signs suspiciously converged
on that particular crystal moment
when she saw the Frost-N-Glow
on the supermarket shelf.
A self-correcting anomaly caused a bag boy
to stumble in aisle two as he hurried to the break room.
Three doors down at the drug store
all the pills rattled in their bottles
although nobody noticed.
After it was done, she soon tired
of twisting her hair into new directions
and out of boredom she
picked up her phone and dialed her own number, expecting some satisfaction in knowing that her phone was busy.
To her surprise, the call
went through.
It rang twice andwas picked up
by a young-sounding man
who acted as if it were his own phone he'd answered.
Of course, The cosmic Ga-Ga had
it all planned out.
True, he was often less-tham-subtle
but a brick wall was frequently
sufficient in closing off paths of chance
and more sure than a feather duster. Very few feather dusters have stopped a man
from keeping an appointment that set
his path in life.
This was all The Ga-Ga's job.
Lost car keys, premonitionary dreams
some days he had to search long and hard
for just the right number of Sunday drivers
to let loose on Monday morning rush hour.
It was no easy job.
Cerise ended up at city hall, shouting about the monsters
in the walls. Her job was
not easy either.
Sep 15, 2018
Sep 15, 2018 at 2:52 PM UTC
Slice the city into two parts
rub salt into open wounds
break down the armoury, shell out the sickles
and spikes and bamboo arrows dipped
in poison berries ripe as raspberry juice
and arm the tribes with tentacles
that search for other tribes
lurking in the shadows of the camouflaged blackness
pull 'em out and punish them in broad daylight
take an arm a leg -cut a tongue loose
so words uttered will sound like jungle anecdotes
in a litany of lies.
I will come swinging
with a mascara maiden
and two henchmen trained as axemen
intent on cutting policies of power
into shreds of excuses to remain seated
on a throne of oiled skulls and feather dusters
Take heed, brother
I buy guns for a slot of land infested with rhino
and elephants and diamonds
as big as hippos dipped in strange ****** rhythms
a thousand years old brewing quietly.
We own this land
The white man came in and took it
"He got the land we got the bible"
We must take it back somehow
and sacrifice all of ourselves
in due process.
Slice the land into two chunky pieces
You take one
my mistress takes the other.
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 11:34 PM UTC
When the wounds whistled me
into weary sleep, I dreamt
I had a cozy little corner of the universe
all to myself. The tune of your lips
puckered against the sky; I watched
as you kissed supernovas into life.
See I bloom so easily, sometimes.
Just purples and blues, maybe green
and some yellow if the star bursts
just right. Often, I have to sleep off
the black holes that rip through me.
Fizzling, I shoot across and fall
Into blessed bliss of ignorance.
Asleep, I see you there. We got ourselves
a nice little place in the stars,
where knuckle dusters cease to exist—
so it’s just space dust, quite magical.
You could make billions
of anything out of this. Eternal. Ethereal.
People spend souls for escapism.
Could you refund mine, actually?
It’s kind of cold up here, now I’ve
stopped dreaming. I kind of
miss feeling the breath fill my lungs.
I sort of want to go home again.
You drifted from my orbit. I think
I miss you.
Dec 16, 2018
Dec 16, 2018 at 3:12 PM UTC
They're back, They’re back, Were under attack,
The lunar rabbits are out for a snack!
Alert the army, the navy and scrabble the jets,
The rabbits on the moon are down here with nets.
They come armed with cannons with weird purple goo,
They fire brown bullets like moon rabbit poo.
We have to fight back, with our own ***** bombs,
So, Fire the grannies in pink frilly thongs!
If that doesn't scare the big moon bunnies back,
Send in the school teachers, send them in in a pack!
Armed with rulers and dusters and big books of maths,
Throwing questions and fractions and patronizing laughs.
Alert all the animals from around the whole globe,
From the great Megladon to the smallest microbe,
Get the Austrian emu with the horns on its feet,
And the machine gun bees to assemble their fleet.
Call the ninja koalas and the samuari fox,
And rats in the prisons with socks full of rocks.
Ring the axe weilding pugs from Norway’s fjords,
And the peacocks from turkey with tails made from swords
Then maybe we can ride into battle on the back of a beast,
The mysterious king ***** that migrate from the east.
Well almost be ready to hold back the attack then,
I fell for that story once, I will not fall for the same trick again.
Jun 20, 2018
Jun 20, 2018 at 10:24 AM UTC
In darkened alleys and vacant parking lots,
Liminal spaces; an astral plane most physical
Broken bones, raw bruises, and blood clots
This is where I wish to throw the first punch; atypical
And insane, I just want to fight
Scuffed knuckles and bleeding noses, I’ve got some sort of plight
Where hatred turns to violence
Hungry blade in hand and dash of rogue; like a lioness
I’ve got to feed my body’s desire
This disturbing anger burns inside me like your funeral pyre
Poor, little girl with emotions on mute
Dreams and dreams of taking on the world
Come on, take me the **** on, deep down I’m a brute;
Brass knuckle dusters and a switchblade twirled
One look at you and it’s all weapons activated
All this rage facilitated
By the **** I take with a smile
As is the style
Of a lady too scared of dried blood consequences
Who feels too much with all her senses
But with the sun down and midnight rears its ugly head
Where moonlight trickles through tin plated shanties
That’s when the darkness is heavy as lead
In my heart, I feel the turmoil and I become a useless vigilante
Too drunk on violence to care for justice
And I got a lust for us
For us and a good and ****** fight
Just you, me, and my one-sided rage
Let’s knock you out like a ******* light
But maybe if we burn some sage
I’ll be purified of this urge
Because every time I see your pretentious face
I get this despicable desire to purge
You of this plane of existence
But Baby, that’s why you need to learn
Respect me or expect resistance
And deep down I yearn
That you never do
So I’ll be justified
When I get to throw the first punch; beating you black and blue
But just know I tried
I tried to lock up these feelings
Beneath a pretty and innocent smile
When my brain is Hell and I got my reasonings
And you’ll be my first trial
Of anger and violence
Where words fail and I don’t believe in silence
At least not until you’ve screamed
And in the afterlife that you’ve dreamed
Feb 8, 2018
Feb 8, 2018 at 6:47 PM UTC
In terms of memory and foreboding,
my life began to fall apart
since when you started with him
Everything was rotting in me
And this my great heart
But deep in me, I know that I love you
And the desire to dream with you, and still
But everything is broken in me
Love and sorrow, happiness and joy, dream and reality
It's been killed.
One summer night
Without any tears in the eye
And without fear in the voice
You decided to make a choice
And you're going up the stairway
And I can’t say a word
Is this an honest way?
Deep in me, I count my days.
Everything around me is just a sound of thousands cars
And I'm looking at the sky, but I can’t see what tell me stars
She goes slowly, slowly, like a cold winter rain
And there is great pain in me, pain
And I feel sadness and biter in the vein
Who is in her game?
And bad dreams come out again from the dark
I'm running down the street to the first park
Here was the first kiss
Behind the fence and shadows of the big trees
She went without fear
And everything went in a minute desipire.
So if I look in the past
And I'm trying to find the answer
Or some reason, but in vain is everything
I wanted to be a thunder
In her heart, and lightning, but it was a mistake
Because that night in the summer
Flies were ravening in large numbers
It was some kind of dust in that flying
And I did not have a dusters
It was only my dream that came into reality
With a great wind in the storm
And there was no lee
Could she hear me?
Hey, hey, you psychologists
Why is this happening to me, all this?
Can somebody help me?
Hey man, young man, go to the warm sea
There is no escape from reality.
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 2:38 AM UTC
Sour apple blades of grass
Kiss her skin like feather dusters
And plumes of evergreens fractal the beating rays
Of summer's midday
Her steps falter, heart beat sluggish
A matching tune
To the drip drip drip
Of crimson tears
Tracking down her wrists,
Gathering and falling off cold fingertips
A bed of silk meet first her knees
Then her cheek
The smell of dirt and anguish
Invades her senses
Heavy eyes flutter shut
And the glaring red curtain
Fades to black
Aug 13, 2017
Aug 13, 2017 at 12:12 AM UTC