"outhouse" poems
Leg off the table
you red face recruit!
put on the offensive
and break down
the bolted door!
you are the soul saver
the peddle maker
the calibrator
with colored handbills
and front line
rhetoric
join the masquerade
in ivy league style!
politicking with
cunning guile
invisalign smile
blackened vile
bleeding the funnel
with gold plate omega
and crocodile shoes
get on stage
and dance you fool!
you are the headline maker
the pantomime juggler
the compromised closer
pull out that 5 page review
(bullet points only please)
and polish those weathered lines!
did you give it your all?
the door tags
and pleasantries
the tidings
and clippings
the irrevocable claims
and postured blames
all those impressionable basics
put to the test?
you know the call
(straight from
those cold academics)
the pie chart gurus
and contract killers
(complete with bone in finger)
whipping their
frenzied crew
in an all night
charade
old yellar
and the gatekeeper
sure seem amused
(sharpening their inquest
behind closed doors)
firing up the shiit storm
with those hostile priicks
and a slew
of insatiable
cures
there’s laughter from the back room
the dripping nose
and wavering hand
the cut white lines
and checkpoint tales
the pipeline romance
and lacking form
(of a basic essential
character!)
soundboard
and narratives
for logging time
slouching on the
steel case
over moot points
ready to play
the 3 weight
butter card
(if need be)
might I remind you
it’s only an inquiry
(with a slight hint of concern!)
surely no
malfeasance
or deception intended
so step back from
the melt down
and cut to the chase!
headlines to breadlines
penthouse to outhouse
those immoral pursuits
have taken their toll
(haven’t they?)
madman or rogue
(you take your pick)
for the scores
and tabulations
are final
shame on you
for the foul play
the bold hypocrisy
and order desk games
the back stabbing blames
and spurious names
just sign on the dotted line ~
this banter
is killing me
Jan 4, 2017
Jan 4, 2017 at 1:12 PM UTC
Anger,
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,
each ****
took, at 8:00 A.M., a baby
and sauteed him for breakfast
in his frying pan.
And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail.
Man is evil,
I say aloud.
Man is a flower
that should be burnt,
I say aloud.
Man
is a bird full of mud,
I say aloud.
And death looks on with a casual eye
and scratches his ****
Man with his small pink toes,
with his miraculous fingers
is not a temple
but an outhouse,
I say aloud.
Let man never again raise his teacup.
Let man never again write a book.
Let man never again put on his shoe.
Let man never again raise his eyes,
on a soft July night.
Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.
I say those things aloud.
12.4k
As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.
Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game *****
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,
And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall--
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,
Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.
The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser--
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.
7.6k
Freezing dusk is closing
Like a slow trap of steel
On trees and roads and hills and all
That can no longer feel.
But the carp is in its depth
Like a planet in its heaven.
And the badger in its bedding
Like a loaf in the oven.
And the butterfly in its mummy
Like a viol in its case.
And the owl in its feathers
Like a doll in its lace.
Freezing dusk has tightened
Like a nut ******* tight
On the starry aeroplane
Of the soaring night.
But the trout is in its hole
Like a chuckle in a sleeper.
The hare strays down the highway
Like a root going deeper.
The snail is dry in the outhouse
Like a seed in a sunflower.
The owl is pale on the gatepost
Like a clock on its tower.
Moonlight freezes the shaggy world
Like a mammoth of ice -
The past and the future
Are the jaws of a steel vice.
But the cod is in the tide-rip
Like a key in a purse.
The deer are on the bare-blown hill
Like smiles on a nurse.
The flies are behind the plaster
Like the lost score of a jig.
Sparrows are in the ivy-clump
Like money in a pig.
Such a frost
The flimsy moon
Has lost her wits.
A star falls.
The sweating farmers
Turn in their sleep
Like oxen on spits.
6.8k
I'm no good at this
and my cabin doesn't help.
Decades of dirt and grime,
a decaying outhouse,
cobwebs and insects,
windows nearly opaque:
Cabin, you are lovely,
but you are filthy.
I am in urgent need
of a French maid
(uniform optional)
or maybe just
a compassionate
and tidy friend.
Or, probably, I'll just continue
not to look too closely.
Ah, the bachelor's life!
- mce
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 8:07 AM UTC
I'm always hungry even though I just ate a while ago
If I go without food for 2 hours my brain works kinda slow
I eat all the time, even when I'm driving
I wonder how it'll be to eat when I'm sky diving
But there's a particular food that I always crave
And if I don't get it, I tend to misbehave
It's amazing and delicious, my favorite cake
I'd go to any lengths for it, no matter what the stake
I'd eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
I'd marry a pâtissier even if he was a sinner
When it comes to cake I show an utmost devotion
My bucket list includes having cake by the ocean
But something happened this summer, which makes me tremble in fear
And now when someone says "Cake" I tend not to go near
I was in Spain, and I was looking for some cake
I was whining and crying; my friend ignorantly sipped her milkshake
So I walked on ahead and finally found a baker
I paused my music; I was listening to Chet Faker
I walked over to him and shouted "I WANT CAKE"
He looked at his buddies and said, "This is the one we take"
The baker and Co. suddenly picked me up; I was too scared to shout
I just wanted my cake and I had no idea what this was about
I tried to escape but it proved to be rather hard
My friend had no idea I was missing; she was looking for an SD card
I didn't wanna think about what might happen, I just wanted to go home
The men had brought me to an outhouse that had a ceiling shaped like a dome
Then they placed me down gently, and were almost too polite
I turned around once I could finally stand and couldn't believe the sight
A crowd was waiting at the back, just waiting to yell "Surprise!"
A man shouted: "You fools! You brought the wrong girl, she isn't even the same size"
They apologized profusely, but honestly I couldn't care less
I just wanted to have my cake and get away from this mess
I walked back past the bakers shop and heard something that gave me déjà vu
"I want cake" said a tall girl; she smiled at me, she didn't have a clue
Jul 6, 2018
Jul 6, 2018 at 6:58 AM UTC
Twas a southern Christmas and from the front porch to the outhouse, everyone was stirring, even a field mouse. Socks were hung over the fire place with care, hoping they would soon be dry there. Grand maw was in the kitchen holding juniors nose, so he would take some caster oil I suppose. Mom was running around with curlers in her hair, if old Saint Nick saw her he would get quiet a scare. Dad and his brother in law were out of the house, hunting for a trophy buck to brag about. While grand paw was out in the barn, turning the yearly corn harvest into moon shine. A little home made spirit to give all some good cheer. So when you think Christmas is strange at your house, just remember how we celebrate Christmas down south.
Dec 21, 2015
Dec 21, 2015 at 2:12 AM UTC
A tattered bird had a made a tomb
in tepid water, it was a puddle
near the framework of a half-built room—
but the soul’s a swerving tunnel
and the dead are waiting at the end:
all sorts of animals huddled at the fringe
where littered pine needles stand
and creep inside the sandy construction site,
pale in the morning light,
the tractors dug aesthetic swirls in the sand—
a culvert keeps the brook alive,
it flows into the forest, which learns to mend
its scars with the festering of its things:
kingfishers’ **** on the berries and branches,
if the plants could undo their own stink
the heart wouldn’t die on its haunches—
the morning’s dew resolves to hoary ice,
its killing the greenery,
but the sandblasters lean, arranged by the outhouse, like
a dream, the first worker arrives early
he rests against a smooth-planed board—
flood the mind, but be sure to drain it out,
its his breakfast cup of tea that stores
his knowledge of beauty
past the place where the bushes are thin
there is an apple orchard, plucked to pieces at the end of fall—
trees arranged in ranks, held up with wires and strings:
a dementia arboreal—
the smells from the orchard meet
the smells from the machines and hover
above the building-zone, mixing with the bite
of cold humidity—a cruel kind of vapor
Feb 1, 2010
Feb 1, 2010 at 9:10 PM UTC
I fell asleep
To the smell of antiseptic,
Sterilizer, biogesic,
And the cold touch of metal
Rods that only seem
To grow colder
With the touch of hospital
Left in the student's
Ward - a whistle
Permeates the silence
Of seniors
Painlessly sleeping away
Hours upon
Hours until graduation -
A coming of age -
An escapism from past papers
And teachers who have
Themselves given up
On them.
And the lights you
See are as bright
And as empty as those blinking
Feebly
In that of the school doctor's
Office, one not really
Blinking more of
Washed, and supported
Wobbling by daylight
Seeping in through peeling blinds,
Unable to see too much -
The headaches and stomachaches
Have rendered him numb
To the feeling.
And lunch comes
And out blows the whistle to
Signify the end
Of playtime for
The young ones, start
Of playtime for
The older ones,
Whistle blowing muffled
By the septic tank glass
Doors of this sacred outhouse,
Wards muffling the cries of children
As they flee the quadrangle,
Once mad, twice elated,
Still innocent, untired,
Not needing to fake sick
And rest their heads softly
Upon thin soft beds with
Towels wrapped haphazardly
Behind their backs,
Nostalgia, it was
Laughter, I swear it was louder
When we used to run,
When our eyes lit up like
The sun petering in through
The doctor's orifices,
When our bruises and bumps
Smelled like betadine,
Not sleep
And cups of sterile water downed
To mask the scent of
Fake cough syrup,
And cuts gotten from fiddled syringes,
Bruised ankles
Bent over undersized beds,
And not running over
Uneven pavement,
Ankles brushing tablecloth,
Schoolbag,
Basketball and frisbee,
And the screaming.
Oh, how I miss
The screaming.
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 9:55 AM UTC
Only those who have used an outhouse would appreciate this.
The Outhouse Poem by unknown author
The service station trade was slow
The owner sat around,
With sharpened knife and cedar stick
Piled shavings on the ground.
No modern facilities had they,
The log across the rill
Led to a shack, marked His and Hers
That sat against the hill.
"Where is the ladies restroom, Sir ?"
The owner leaning back,
Said not a word but whittled on,
And nodded toward the shack.
With quickened step she entered there
But only stayed a minute,
Until she screamed, just like a snake
Or spider might be in it.
With startled look and beet red face
She bounded through the door,
And headed quickly for the car
Just like three gals before.
She missed the foot log - jumped the stream
The owner gave a shout,
As her silk stockings, down at her knees
Caught on a sassafras sprout.
She tripped and fell - got up, and then
In obvious disgust,
Ran to the car, stepped on the gas,
And faded in the dust.
Of course we all desired to know
What made the gals all do
The things they did, and then we found
The whittling owner knew.
A speaking system he'd devised
To make the thing complete,
He tied a speaker on the wall
Beneath the toilet seat.
He'd wait until the gals got set
And then the devilish tike,
Would stop his whittling long enough,
To speak into the mike.
And as she sat, a voice below
Struck terror, fright and fear,
"Will you please use the other hole,
We're painting under here !"
Sep 15, 2013
Sep 15, 2013 at 3:04 PM UTC
The Harvest Bow
As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.
Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game *****
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,
And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall—
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,
Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.
The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser—
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.
by Seamus Heaney
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 8:02 PM UTC
It was still there
the old outhouse
on the edge
of the woods,
he saw, making
his way around it,
his eyes scanning
each part, each
memory soaked
into the wood
grown old.
He opened the door
and peered in.
The smell faded
through lack of use.
Cobwebs still hung there,
spiders raced
across the ground.
No other sound.
Memories stirred.
He and she had ***
here once; door locked
against the world,
against the nosey neighbours,
her parents, the night wind
and bright moon’s glow.
He can smell her scent still,
that smell she had,
fresh apples and hay.
He walked about
the small space,
his footsteps moved
over where once they lay.
Not planned, out of the passion
of that meeting, kissing
and holding, young flesh
stirred and the need
to be satisfied.
He leaned down
and put his fingers
across the ground,
rubbed where once
her buttocks rested,
her legs wide, her eyes
in shade of the semi dark,
her body captured
his juices in the passion’s tide.
Long since gone
she to some other place
that one night of ***
ingrained in his mind
and on the ground
and outhouse walls of wood.
He’d love to see her
here again and **** her
once more if he could.
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 4:47 PM UTC
KICKING THE BUCKET
The moon has fallen
asleep in a bucket
can't get back out despite
trying to slide over the rim.
It trembles as a train
thunders past midnight.
A child tries to catch it
its tiny hand plunging
through another dimension
through to its nothingness.
The moon takes its chance and
escapes to the sky with a splash.
It's all gone now
( the barn of course )
but the house...the child...that moon
are no longer to be found.
Strange to think
a house can die.
A tree enters through
the kitchen window
lays
its head upon a table.
The bedroom
is without its roof.
A door still stands
without its walls.
It bangs in the breeze
a surreal morse code.
The living room is home
to a family of nettles.
A sofa moulders
a new line in zombie furniture.
A hare stands upon a chair
barely able to hold itself together.
One of the chair's legs
genuflects to a sunset.
The hare hops upon
the rotting table top
enters the tree's head
and leaves upon its branches.
Somehow the bucket
survives.
Still standing outside
the outhouse.
It is full of storm
right to the brim.
It holds within itself
the moon of now.
Trains no longer
thunder by.
I, that child
now - this man
let the moon
splash through my man
before throwing it
into the night's sky.
Always wanted to do that
before I kicked the bucket.
Aug 13, 2018
Aug 13, 2018 at 6:42 PM UTC
The HUM-BUZZIN' 0f a newspaper flywheel-press
What jarred up BUZZIN' slanders will these stories hold?
On Newspaper traps where tortured minds are stuck and sold!
Where lowered human beings are treated less
On almost every city corner news is sought
Those ugly outhouse lookin' shacks disperse,
Smelly rotten things not found in beauty verse
The sensation of broken wing-ged offical caught
Garbage boy, toss my garbage at my door,
maggot level I will bend,
And claw-fetch the news of bitter end
And saaaavoooor the nasty things in store
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 3:11 AM UTC
I taste death
in every food I eat
I see beauty
in every face I meet
It all once lived
before it died
One day maybe
nothing will need to die
for mankind to survive
I see beauty
in the face of every person I meet
The public world
of shopping malls
Supermarkets
Working's pall
Inside while primitive
fantasies
still reside
Rageful tides
Spiderwebs blowing down hillsides
Carrying on a private conversation
in a public gathering
"a little privy please"
There are no walls
in the outhouse
The outhouse is lined
with mirrors and windows
The rules are the rules
even for desire
tho sometimes we all do
a mashpit at the opera
Everything has a taste
Internal
External
make a mistake
it's back to the wild
Food for fodder
fodder for thought
Still seeing beauty
in every face I meet
Tasting death
in every food I eat
Makes water in
the desert
so so sweet.
Jan 12, 2018
Jan 12, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC
I was an entire baby and then a picture of me as a baby. I had as part of the **** shaming process a father wheeled in and out of the sun. here is a boy with a red brick looking for an anthill. the sun was out. I brushed from her bare back a piece of straw and it stuck to my leg. in the barn I built another barn so I could go to both. here is the eater of stones in the privacy of an outhouse. I lie to her face and then to nostalgia’s outlook. the collapse of my favorite cow is followed by the cow’s collapse.
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 5:44 PM UTC
i found
that suburbian
love-seats
couldn’t hold
the kind of love
i was searching
for
and ***
between
crumbling
couch cushions
slowly became a
tedious night ritual:
mountain
ranges told
me from a
first-time-
glance that
i was worth
more than
a subtle
"*thank
you*.”
whispered
into the
curve of my
breast.
so i left home
with holes in
my pockets
and a period
of harsh
abstinence
hanging over
my chest like
a ******* sword.
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 9:38 AM UTC
***When nature calls away from home
you need to find a public throne
a place that's clean to spread your cheeks
one that flushes without plumbing leaks
not at an outhouse or a remote latrine
they're so disgusting and very obscene
Time to hurry you're poking cotton
skid mark stains are never forgotten
parking your car at the local K-mart
releasing pressure, cheek sneak a ****
concern turns to fear of what you dread
passing gas has formed a turtle head
As your back side slaps the toilet seat
you realize this job will end incomplete
burning eyes from the methane vapor
on the roll not one square of paper
so every time you cut the cheese
don't forget to clinch and squeeze***
Aug 12, 2015
Aug 12, 2015 at 12:45 PM UTC
It was a normal two scorpion and one rattlesnake day at 112° in Wichita Falls , Texas .
Texas . . . they made Hell out of the good parts of Texas and the rest of the state just went there . Fortunately my parents only went there so my little sister could be born there . We left the great state of Texas and moved to the incestuous state of Alabama .
Where the impossible will always remain the same . And the possible will be banned , outlawed , and perpetuated behind countless barns , toolsheds , and the outhouse known as Montgomery , the State Capitol . Called the Heart of Dixie (it should be called ******* of Dixie and thank God for Mississippi , for they have wrest that title away from us . But we gave it a-hell-a-va-fight .)
We are a multicolored society . We have white (the pressence of all color) and black (the absence of all color). Which is strange now because the black people are called colored and the white people are called all kinds of blacked out names (usually on court documents).
Alabama is proud of it's educational system . We measure one's intelligence by how soon they leave the state for better opportunities . In Alabama an educated person is a four letter word , like *** hole , or worse . Oops !
Let me see now . . . one , two , three , four . . . got to tale off my shoe . . . five , six , seven . . . wait a minute . . . *** hole ? . . . is that one or two words .
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 7:08 AM UTC
Today, a poem should be palatable, cute
As a Kiwi fruit,
Dumb
As a horse battalion's scudding run,
Strident as out of tune horns
Of basement bands where the gloss has grown—
A poem should be bloodless
As the slight of words.
A poem should be film of ocean brine
As the reel unwinds,
Cleaving as the gear greases
Spoke by spoke the light smearing breeze,
Blowing, to the temple outhouse
Exalting all the ****** functions—
A poem should be not true:
Equal too.
For all the history of vanity
An empty room and a bass relief
For lust
The keening masses and no light above the stream
A poem should not be
But mean.
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 6:29 PM UTC
15 years later, and we came back
the same creaking door announced our arrival
wood paneling and deer antlers seemed to remember us
the same way we started to remember them
six bunk beds and wooden shelves
where I used to put my radio and listen at night
the same key chains hanging from the light strings
we sat at the same wooden table
and put together that circular puzzle that has never left my mind
we went to the river and ran in bare feet
with the same fear of snakes as we did way back then
we sat 17 around the table and ate supper
and did the dishes with boiling water
we played Dutch blitz and card games
and always took someone else with us to the outhouse
we pumped that same water out of the same red pump
and the water had black flecks like it always used to
we all lined up and jumped off the rock in the same order as always
"my name is Bethany and I'm 22"
we hopped in the truck bed and went deer spotting at night
and remembered why we were scared of bears
and I remembered how much I miss being around my sisters
I slept on the top bunk with my sister
and she didn't stick her legs under my back like she always did
we climbed up to the fire tower
and rubbed leaves on our yellow jacket stings
I wish there was a natural remedy for nostalgia
when we left, they ran to the road to say goodbye
like they always did before
and my heart felt like some of it didn't leave with me
it took 15 years, but I came back
Jul 18, 2024
Jul 18, 2024 at 9:45 AM UTC
They were paid a dollar but taxed to a dime
That's why they should ****
on company time.
Aug 2, 2014
Aug 2, 2014 at 4:02 PM UTC
I listened to the iron rooster
spinning in the wind wondering
who would climb the roof
and take him in, or would he roost
with strangers in the house
It was so cold
the chicken water froze over
The women made coffee
and the men went out to the shed
to look over the tools
No one would sit in her black chair
because it was a bear
that might wake up anytime
She died in the middle of the night
The doctor said her heart blew out
like a jar of preserves
Before dawn I laid my head
on the hard couch by the cast iron
stove and heard her coming down
the stairs with her cane and her teeth
in a glass on the way to the outhouse
saying Who took my flashlight?
Feb 10, 2017
Feb 10, 2017 at 8:53 PM UTC
the outhouse, and the woman in it, gone.
father’s
praying
place.
if beside it
I could see
the open empty toolbox
I knew to yank the dog homeward.
I was doing what anyway.
in mother’s voice. in brother’s
untucked
shirt.
messing around with our neighbor, the messiah.
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 3:46 PM UTC
I picture my father
lighting a cigarette
in the baby dark
of his ******
awareness
while sitting
on a motorcycle
not yet surrounded
by snow
I listen for my mother
telling tales
of white owls
struggling
in outhouse
webs
and of the hole
with a bottom
I admire
the dollhouse
ghost
brushing its hair
in the lopsided
mirror
of my brother’s
loose
tooth
and I plan
to make a stick
figure
family
from no more
than eye-
lashes
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 9:42 PM UTC