"fresheners" poems
Enter through the double doors and it will hit you
A one of a kind, nothing like you ever smelled before
You will know where you are even if you’re blind.
Plug in air fresheners filling all the outlets through out
With a fragrance of fresh cut nectar filled flowers.
Masking now the true scent of the repulsive chemicals
That fill your body and flush you till you run clear.
Stronger the smell, stronger my fear
The closer I come to the lower room
The deeper I inhale.
Expanding my lungs to capacity and hold as long as I can
Setting up my writing room next to the dead is my plan.
Nickel silver oil lamps eight feet tall
And a matching tear soaked blue velvet prayer alter
Worn out from carrying all the weight from the mourners
Will be my only light and seat as I sit and write.
Thumbing now through a hard cover book
That sat in there for many years
Eyes closed and close to my nose
I fan the pages as fast as I can go.
Polo, Taylor, and Calvin Klein,
They used to be a favorite
Pores now sweat a strange new lovely kind.
(CARSr.6-19-12)
Jun 19, 2012
Jun 19, 2012 at 1:00 PM UTC
Air fresheners killin' me softly about
judgment moments--days bruised hearts sing about
within the reach of hell--and she told me about her allergies
Of course Polaroids stalk what we don't see--those kisses
and the homeless starving, and flowers, and **** and books, those tears,
and when she broke the fever from food poisoning. I bet we'll remember that
--And the exposed arms around your waist,
lips on midday, heart up early, breakfast for two underneath
the only red umbrella
left after Gabriel's tune
we remixed
the night before.
Standing on the brink of the Lazarus water-mark
--And the man behind you, and the lack of others behind us.
Gehenna before us
wiping away the unforgivable.
--And they make us forget you were allergic
to the pollen of spring--the death-throes of day flies.
Feb 9, 2013
Feb 9, 2013 at 12:36 AM UTC
I thought of my desolate air fresheners, of all shapes, sizes and scents.
pick the little one shaped and scented like a rose.
the sweet, cloying smell that irks your sensitive nose.
nobody knows how it happened, but
your breakfast goes (out).
pick the green tree, the one that smells like pine.
maybe you should wash it down with some wine.
the sharp scent reminds you of grandma's house, and suddenly you taste brine on your face.
maybe you should take the one shaped like a lemon, with a whiff of zing.
suddenly I remember how you didn't even blink
with your acidic words when you said you were leaving.
nothing seems to be able to mask the sad, musty smell of loneliness;
but maybe with a gentle caress.....?
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 11:58 AM UTC
I do a few pushups
Before you visit
I rummage for the good cologne
Dash some on wrist, neck
Crotch
I trim my hair
Sweep the floor
Swipe the gunk
Off sinks
Wash the dishes
Stuff all the junk
Socks, backpacks, ****
Into the closet
Rearrange my trinkets
Shelve the various books
Thrown all about
Lay out the good movies
Songs, covers
Ready at hand
Prep my mind
With witticisms and humor
Hang up strawberry
Car-fresheners
Buy wine
Out of my price range
Dim the lights
Scrape the crust
Dust off the shadows
For you
I dream
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 1:33 AM UTC
I gotta feeling
and the only thing to make it feel real good
is a bit o' brickel
maybe a tower or two
I'm pretty picky when it comes to the Bahamas
can't tell me nothing
double negatives on photographs
sassyfrass
tea for a lifetime
all mine
gobbledy- gobble said the cow
he was tired, like usual
and like all animals he slept
and crept, past varying levels of waving sleepiness
all a dream
wanted to sing sing sing
a song
but give me a tie
a tulle skirt
chalk it up to bad caulking
walking for miles for thrills
just killing time
not brain cells
though they're practically suicidal anywhere
gimme gimme some of that
oh yeah,
and some pine tree air fresheners
smells like a sewer down and around
Lilly Petes won't miss a bunch of nothing
for nothing.
Jul 19, 2012
Jul 19, 2012 at 9:13 PM UTC
Moist cement leads to broken metal doors which hold in the pungent scent of the orange air fresheners
Click, ding, swoosh
Everyone rushes in to pretend they have a purpose
Broken earbuds serve me no purpose other than the universal sign of "leave me the **** alone"
Leather wrapped around foam in neat rows
Lined by green tint
And topped with arches of metal
I squeeze into the last bit of routine and look out into the green tinted world
My reflection stares back, judging me
I pretend to ignore him, but she demands attention
They get a firm grip on my hair and tear me from my leather *******
She tells me that there is no hope for the one I pretend to love
He says she has no doubt in their soul that I'm making things worse
I'm suddenly sitting in a metal chair
I feel bound to it, but I'm not
She does it for attention
He has the option to get up, but they stay to hear the truth she has to tell
They do it for attention
You are doing this to ourselves
We can get up from this chair but he doesn't let yourself
We do it for attention
She feels the chair get hot where he sits
They know he can get up but she feels he deserves this pain
He are not bound
We is not bound
They were not bound
She won't be bound
He must be doing this for attention
Attention from whom
They hid her chair for as long as he possibly could
She lied saying he was cold...in June
He made jokes when she couldn't come up with excuses
She didn't do this for attention
He sat in the seat because it is her fault
They can get up at anytime
But I don't
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 12:07 AM UTC
Would he still feel comfortable
in brooks brothers felt trousers or those loafers
with golden ornamentation or with pale white
business cards being traded between moisturized
fingers. With hands clutching a cold metal
pole on the subway and swaying to coltrane
from his headphones would he still trade glances
with the woman in good humor whites with two
black babies and a clear tub of windex and fresheners
and rubber yellow gloves. Or just stand tall and straight
and rigid and lifeless and keep his eyes
on the black floors and the loafers
and the illuminated emails shining from his palm.
With a newer suit and pay raise and the snarling of his new office and the desk with his middle aged secretary, would he still treat her kindly and keep her father's cancer in mind or instead, (next month), ask for a younger blonder girl from a better school (and bigger ****
after the man finally makes his seven figures.
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 2:50 PM UTC
The soil is boiling.
Noxious fumes rise from fissures.
Ice cubes and air-fresheners
Are thrown down from the mansion windows
And we are expected to go to war.
To war, where we will get to be
Harvested by machine guns,
Throttled by creeping yellow-green,
And drowned in ice
While our blackened feet fall to pieces.
Blind old Nikolai
Can't see the flames
Burning behind thousand-yard-staring eyes
Sunken into one hundred million hollow faces.
Hollow faces etched into the night
By the glow of mortar blasts
And factory fires
He revels in ineptitude
While our agonizing joy
Is found in the next teasing grey sunrise
As we seek to one day return
To the torn and tear-dampened recollections in our pockets.
While a colonel weeps into a photograph,
The wife of his brother weeps into a telegram
As her cousin is getting his vocal cords clipped out in the streets of Petrograd
And his father is being eviscerated upon factory
Yes, Nikolai;
The soil is boiling
And I will live, I must live
If only to see the day
That it crumbles beneath you.
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015 at 7:54 AM UTC
My jokes are like old air fresheners - they don't make scents.
Mar 19, 2016
Mar 19, 2016 at 8:14 AM UTC
The feel of the vehicle, bitter from the night
Blue light on the dash
Whirring of gears as the glass rolls
Eight air fresheners hang loose from the mirror
Holding on to your memory
Grabbing for the pack of death
And lighting another nail in the coffin
reticence clawing at his ears
The memory of your mirth fueling the fire
Indigestion strikes like a knife to the side
Held by your slender hand
The laughter shared obsesses the heart
Beating with such vigor and plight
Mind tripping on compromised pasts
Tender is the ghoul from the nail
Circling his head like a noose
Bound by your memory
In remembering solace
To ease his concern
Taking comfort in his rusted cage
Seat embracing him
Upholstered in stained fabric
Shedding light on shadowed nights of old
His memory of you fades
No longer lancinating
No longer choking
In taking solace in the void that has become your memory
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 8:49 PM UTC
I like the clouds
that make the skies look as
they have mountains
It reminds me of the good times
of the rain
and the pine trees
and the creeks that echoed the sounds
of love.
there is a happy place that exists for me
somewhere.
but the pine scented air fresheners
do not bring me the same comfort.
the postcards sent from family members
with my name written neatly on them,
do not make me feel as they did before.
I long for my happy place
that does not need my name written on it,
for me to know I belong there.
now the sky is entirely gray
and it does not look like there are mountains.-
The mornings give me the meaning I long for.
And the mundane tasks of the noon
remind me of insignificance.
but I still do not wake up earlier-
what’s the point
of pretending i am where i am supposed to be,
when a few hours later,
i will be reminded i am still homesick?
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 1:47 PM UTC
she wrote me a letter, scented
of perfume
I no longer had my third biggest
budget bill
the plug in air fresheners and
Febreeze
by the gallon, no longer needed.
And, about then I got this Email,
invest
in the US Postal Service, the stock is at an
all time low.
So now I am much richer, more wise,
conscious
of the future again, it is smelling sweeter!!
I have
the emailed stock certificates to
prove!
I re-invested all those savings wisely.
awaiting
the dividends. When I sit vicariously, pouring over my balance
sheet,
I find Olde English and cigarettes have
risen way to the top of my budget the
empty
cans are my top asset! I
smile
at my luck, almost like winning the
Lottery!
May 24, 2016
May 24, 2016 at 8:21 PM UTC
*im trying to write a PC poem
perhaps something like
im nice looking for a whiteish Jew man
with blue eyes
instead of just a nice looking man
if you don't mind the occasional flatulence
or
air fresheners
as i like to call them
or
write maybe something about broken hearts
and the weather when its raining
as in a stormy life and a rocky relationship
or
how i love the unique symmetry of each and every snow flake
or
i was also thinkin azure skies and verdant fields kinda poetry
or
maybe how i always wanted a bigger ****
so i didn't have to try so hard to impress the ladies
with my personality
which never really works anyway
at least not as much
as a big baloney roll snurkeling down my leg in tight jeans
Its not lost on me that that last idea isn't PC enough to become a published poet
like ive always dreamed
i mean can you name me a laureate who writes about that stuff
see what kinda road blocks i run into
when i write something
i really care about*
Dec 19, 2017
Dec 19, 2017 at 4:51 AM UTC
Your car
I think is my favorite place
All black
Purple tinted Windows
Grenade air fresheners hanging from the rest view mirror along with black jumbo fuzzy dice
Radio plugged into your iPhone
Playing my favorite music
Because it's your favorite too...
It's your favorite too.
Eyes focused on the road
One hand on the steering wheel
The other lighting a cigarette
The way you love your music the way
The way you sing those songs that we both no every word too.
How did you know what my favorite song was?
You hardly look at me because your driving
And your so careful
But when you do make a quick glance
I swear my heart skips a beat.
And when you pull over the way you stop
And just look forward and pause
The way your look at me
And so gently put your fingers on my chin
Bring you lips close to me and pause
As if to make sure it's ok
And you look at me
With a face I can not find the words to describe No smile or smirk just passion
Just gentle tenderness and romanticism you kiss me
First so softly just lips
Then more passionately and assertive
Then you just stop and look at me
When you kiss me when you touch me
It doesn't feel ***** or lustful
It's something else i don't know if it's love
Because I don't believe i have ever felt love before
We move fast because your assertive and I love that but...
I'm scared
I'm so scared because I actually feel something
I'm so scared
Because I still know so little about you
We just met
But I want you
It doesn't feel wrong
This is different
As we kiss while I'm on top of you
I'm so hesitant I'm shaking
But you just keep touching me
Slowly at first and then faster
You make me feel wanted
But can I really believe that you care about me? I'm so...
We have never had ***
We have done "things"
But I'm still a ****** to you
I'm not ready
But I don't think I could ever say no to you
But you have never urged me too
You have never mentioned it
Is it just because you don't want to get me pregnant or because you know how scared I am
My Pisces lover
The romance and gentleness
You share with me is what I need
Your cute Eskimo kisses and the way you pinch my nose I feel so much more behind it
I feel like you have been searching for someone to love for someone to give your every thing too just like me.
But I feel like your holding back your feelings
I still don't know much about you
But I know there is so much inside of you locked up that no one has ever seen before
But I want to see it I want to know everything about you...
The scorpion fell in love with the fish
My Pisces lover
I could write books about you
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 9:29 PM UTC
The problem with people-watching
in the middling suburbs outside Pittsburgh,
is everyone looks like they’re related,
a little too similar, bad photocopies
of the same dull morality.
The girls have similar haircuts
and the boys wear similar shorts.
The men and women,
they cannot stomach the ‘F’ word,
but they adore efficient order
enforced through totalitarian violence.
Chemical air fresheners are pumped
through department store ventilation systems.
Perhaps the compound is designed
to induce complacency for the status quo
and suppress everyone's style
or sense of fashion.
May 19, 2018
May 19, 2018 at 12:12 PM UTC
I listened to the album we used to listen to for the first time in years.
Hard to admit, but my eyes burned a little
Trying to hold tears back.
I can still remember the smell of your car,
A mixture of those tree shaped fresheners
Cherry, new car, pine
And cigarettes that "weren't yours"
"You can shut it down, down, down..."
This was my favorite song, I think it was yours too.
This is the one that brings it all back.
These lyrics were stupid and sounded forced,
But we gave them some meaning, I suppose.
I hadn't listened to them since the day that you left
I think the CD was still in your car when they brought to the junk yard.
It all happened too soon.
It's weird.
In high school you feel invincible.
And I know that everyone says that but I didn't realize until after.
We didn't have any plans for the future and we didn't care,
All of us.
We thought things would stay good forever.
And then nothing was the same.
All we really have left are our memories,
Not even the CD survived.
Haha.
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 10:06 AM UTC
Someone playing a concrete violin
with a jackhammer
on a midnight sidewalk,
street lights gawk,
flickering fascination,
tuning keys locked,
rosin swipes declined
chalks marks hold hop scotch trinkets
tossed into the numbered squares,
pawned now for a glass of chardonnay
and a plate of cheese
Paneled walls ache
of yesterday’s smoke rings,
scentless air fresheners,
hanging Christmas trees
presumed innocent,
only here for the music
and rear view mirrors
lipstick traces on a folded napkin
crimson half circles
prints on either side
someone will be kissed tonight
I’ll take it with me
I love the flavor
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 6:08 PM UTC
too much to bear? seeing the first violet
by the step, remembering how you sent
the blue linen
jacket wrapped.
my love of tissue paper.
she wanted to buy the pillow too,
yet we do not sell them. that is a
cushion.
madam.
for display purposes only.
car fresheners? no, those neither.
ah, air fresheners, no we sold out.
i could not raise her disappoint
ment confessing her daughter
bought the last one. her mothers
day gift.
george raft dancing the tango, &
new connections that love beetles
as much as me.
rather a lot to bear. #happy.
research day at the mill.
sbm.
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 1:35 AM UTC
It’s unique to everyone.
Maybe it’s rain,
or the ocean.
Gasoline
or coffee.
How about fresh linens
or cinnamon apples?
You could smell new books
or old books,
fresh parchment,
cotton candy,
or bubble gum.
Maybe it’s chocolate,
or fruits,
or mint toothpaste for you.
How about flowers -
lavender
lilies
roses
daisies?
Carnival foods
like funnel cake,
and hot dogs.
Or air fresheners
that smell like erupting volcanoes.
New cars,
or ancient forests,
castles filled with only the finest
or abandoned ruins.
Things burning,
fresh-cut grass,
strong or subtle perfumes,
or maybe sterile hospital rooms.
If you’re into it, sweaty athletes,
or band kids,
or comic shops
where you can play your favorite card games.
Is it your room?
Your house?
Is it home?
Where you belong.
Curled up next to someone you love
on Halloween,
reading or watching a movie,
realizing this is what you were missing.
Is it makeup,
or hairspray?
Certain shampoos that trigger happiness?
Or candles with the best scent ever?
How about baking –
cookies
brownies
cakes?
Maybe it’s cologne,
or the smell of the air
as it changes from familiar to foreign.
It could be a theme park,
or the mountains.
How about old forts,
and rivers you grew up around?
You know these smells,
the ones you love.
Well, that’s my favorite.
It’s the smell of love.
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019 at 12:53 PM UTC
In the small house down the block...
Hundreds of tangerine air fresheners
hang from the ceiling.
Cars come and go
At all hours
Furtive movement
Car to house
House to car
In the dim light
bills are traded for small baggies
Bits of chemical provide relief.
Temporarily
Nearby...
Children play
Happy
Ignorant of the filth that surrounds them
In the small house down the block...
Plastic buckets
Chemicals and bleach
Hollow-eyed adults use long sticks
to stir the brew
Fiberglass respirators and rubber gloves protect them
There is no God here.
Nearby...
Children play
Happy, smiling
Curious
In the small house down the block...
Skeletal adults are strewn
randomly on floors couches and chairs
Sleeping the non-sleep of the drugged undead.
Cigarettes and blunts burn in ashtrays.
Roaches and rats feast
on ignored food
Nearby...
A child challenges a rat for pizza
She brushes off the bugs
Hunger overtaking revulsion
She bites down
Weekends are bad
Monday she'll eat again
at school
Where she's fed
her only reliable meals.
-- she hates Spring Break --
In the small house down the block...
A toddler bobbles around
He looks into this
He looks into that
Curious about the world around him
A bucket with bubbles
That's fun.
The bubbles are deep
He leans over
He reaches
down, down, down
SPLASH!!!
It must have been the sirens
that caused them to stir.
It wasn't his agonized screams
It wasn't the girl's wailing and tears
Huh? Wha?
They rise
Unfocused, unaware, unconcerned
3:19 PM
In the small house down the block...
A 17 month old boy dies of chemical burns
To the eyes, nose, trachea, and lungs
Nearby...
The skeletal adults are angry
that they will receive $357.84 less
in welfare payments next month.
Aug 29, 2019
Aug 29, 2019 at 11:20 PM UTC
Nora
Nora stands in the streets,
Nora befriends Patrick,
She tries to defy David,
In red lipstick she is unique,
She cares for her son Nick.
She is from the red light street,
She usually wears ripped jeans,
She waits for her ‘king’
For Nick she buys jelly beans,
She cooks plain beans,
For “love night” he phone rings!!
Nora is compelled to vie Maria,
She loves to share food with Paloma,
Together they discuss erotica,
They want a trip in Valdivia,
They desire to pray in Hajia Sofia.
They are girly girls,
They don’t like to stand against the walls.
Nora adorns herself in red,
She loves to stand in shades,
She seems savory like ‘milk made’
She is just time’s puppet;
She doesn’t love to unzip her jacket,
She wants to imprison the racket!
She is a container of confetti,
She hates to stand against graffiti,
People falsely call her “pretty”
Nora is really needy,
She isn’t a roadside candy,
Still, people see her as a wild berry!
Nora’s long hair is denser,
Her lips are sensuous,
She wears pink n’ purple,
She charms the paupers,
She helps Dora fixing the braid-flowers,
She hates the aroma of fresheners.
All she does for her toddler,
To her, life is a closed condenser,
She loves Julie like own sister,
She waits for lost love Oliver,
She allures people with winged eyeliner.
Nora is destiny’s preserver,
Every night, she kills her customers,
Being a mental slayer!!
Apr 22, 2018
Apr 22, 2018 at 10:58 AM UTC