"frigidaire" poems
There's a Polar Bear
In our Frigidaire--
He likes it 'cause it's cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the fish
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He's nibbling the noodles,
He's munching the rice,
He's slurping the soda,
He's licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he's in there--
That Polary Bear
In our Fridgitydaire.
20.3k
a polar vortex
swirls eastward
on Siberian Tiger paws
bounding over
Appalachian Highlands
gobbling geography
gelling Great Lakes
spawning Erie blizzards
sculpting Wabash ice floes
clogging commerce all
along the Ohio River Valley
this voracious
juggernaut’s wide maw
bears icicle teeth
laughing as it swallows
Pittsburgh, Little Philly,
and a Big Apple, before
gorging itself on
generous portions
ladled into
simmering crocks
of steaming
Boston Baked Beans
growling
blue arctic
air blasts roar
bursts pipes
savages the heat
of blasting furnaces,
bubbling boilers, hot
belly stoves frantically
drinking oil, flaming gas
burning wood and
burping soot
the blistering
jet stream claws
screech a slashing
stratospheric hum
as Frigidaire blasts
swallows breath
brittles limbs
chafes cheeks
gnaws earlobes
crystallizes tears
nibbles nostrils
cubes snot
numbs toes
bites digits
diving sub zero
gradient subdues
batteries to
deaden states
delays buses
derails trains
cuts power
constricts veins
preys on
vagabonds
and animals
get the homeless
off the street!
bring the animals in
check on your
elderly neighbors
don’t get caught outside
and shut the **** door!
do you own stock
in the Public Service?
beware the polar vortex
and next months heating bill
Sonny Boy Williamson
& Otis Spann
Nine Below Zero
Oakland
1/6/14
jbm
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 2:43 PM UTC
(To JS/07/M/378/ This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every
way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it
cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war,
he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of
his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
2.1k
Pleads her mint blue eyes
Thank you for the patting touch
If I crave for a saucer of milk
Would that be asking too much?
Of course you have the right to ignore
And throw my way a vacant stare
Signing me to move away from door
Pretending there’s no milk in Frigidaire!
But I beg you to act humanly
Be ethical and firmly fair
If you got some milk for your tea
Surely you’ve some for me to spare!
Parting a few drops wouldn’t make you poor
My blessings would give you manifold back
You would feel far happier and I’m sure
Sky won’t fall if your brew is more black!
Well if you still ignore I would move away
With dignity I would leave your ground
But don’t blame me when comes the day
You feel a void and I’m not around!
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM UTC
heaven mapped on
Frigidaire.
rat poison
[posie ring] ****
girl on the elliptical will get
rabies from her bfs bluetick
& the man at library
will tell me the same story
about hazel eyed women
next week.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
it's raining outside--
out of no where like it does
here most of the time, sometimes
without a single flash of lightning
just a few raindrops on the frigidaire
and then the whole lot of them echoing
in through the vents and seeping through
the crack it leaves beneath the window, soft
wet drops pulsing in onto the sill,
that's when the thunder come, on page 167,
sounding something like truck wheels in
that thick snow during the dead of winter
punching lines through the driveway
rollin' out onto the street, not too
much like it did last week when
all of 15th St North was flooded
up past all the hubcaps of every
church-goer and The Daily Record
posted pictures in the following day's
Shopper of grandmothers waddling past
the post office looking dismayed as ever--
but they didn't catch them teenagers
swimming in the ditch of a parking lot
at Taco Bell.
And it's a little too hot in here, but i'm not too privy
to open the windows, because the pitter-patter is all
too deceiving, we're still in the mid-slump of summer
when it gets to be 82 degrees by 9am so the best I can
do is sit still and not turn my head too much---
Sunday's on full-force, already cooked my chicken tenderloins for the week and I'm busy watching #103's shadows shift behind the door
ever'time he leaves his apartment for who-knows-what just that
it makes me real nervous when his thin silhouette lingers or his
jacket buttons brush the door-knob an' make me jump.
but it's alright, living alone. Me and God got loads to talk about but he knows that sometimes I'm just quiet and I'm tryin' real hard.
He knows.
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 7:13 PM UTC
.
Left alone, the abyss of failure
closes in,
for days it seems like weeks,
though months are now reduced to counted minutes
Coffin’d stances form the stoic barricade
which surrounds my hope
in picket lines of untrained defectors
I claw at its lid,
thrashing mightily to my sides
as collections of miseries
flood this chamber of my coerced sleep
“I am here!” I shout,
hearing my words
echo in distance dance halls
two stepping on my memory,
spitting above where I lie
Here - a relevant term
as columns of disbelief carve themselves
from my mind.
Forgotten, left for dead,
erased from the blackboard
by the firm swishing hand of fate…
reduced to dust (I don’t feel like dust)
Blisters climb my arms in search of answers,
none can be found here,
where ever the hell here is… yet, I am here
My brain circles the skyline in desperation,
the gutters below cry, trash strewn as if it were me
sleeping off my drunk
in that Frigidaire box
“I am me!” I cry to the empty corridors of someone else’s life
One I’d rather be
Or one who would rather not?
…….
Someday my file may lie open,
atop a desk,
a partitioned sanctuary of hidden ethics,
beneath the crumpled Cheeto’s bag,
now layered with stale orange crumbs
maybe someone will see
maybe someone will wonder
or maybe still forgotten
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 8:15 AM UTC
Ready for sleep and lying in my bed..
I heard this music spinning 'round
in my head..
I wasn't dreaming, I knew it was there,
and it was coming from my Frigidaire..
As I opened up the door, to my surprise..
The Pork Chops were dancing with the
Chicken Thighs..
They said, "don't bother us now, 'cause
were really hot, none of us are gonna
sit in here and rot.."
Sweet Fruit and some Juices were doing
it too, and the Milk standing tall was
singing Moo, Moo, Moo..
As I opened up the freezer, I heard a
different beat..
All of the other stuff was grooving
with the Meat..
Everybody was getting down, then
I gently closed the door..
But I see no rest for me, this night..
My feet keep tapping on the floor..
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 2:43 PM UTC
When the shower curtains are made of silk and bleach detergent is in your milk, there are subtle signals of your malady played to the notes under this melody.
This house is a frozen Frigidaire. Remnants kept
Cold.
Bare.
Simple thoughts of the sandman’s nightmares.
The monsters escape from beneath the stairs.
They're afraid of freezing, afraid of Death.
Though you stand there breathing yet can't feel your breath. And you're there in the hallway.
And you're there in the breezeway.
And you're on the white balcony playing dead.
You're in between the wallspace.
And you're in the creaks of the staircase.
And you're on the ivory keys playing this song in my head.
The car in the driveway is 50-years-old.
The tires are roots. The seat belts are mold.
There's no gas in the fuel tank, the steering wheel's gone.
You sit as the driver, your blinker's stuck on.
I found your name in the library news. It vaguely explained what had happened to you.
For most of your life you were silver spooned
Wealthy
And rich.
Yet, simultaneously
Cold.
And bare.
Slowly sipping musical arsenic
Unhappy
Dead.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 1:44 PM UTC