"plumbing" poems
(for Christopher Isherwood)
Seated after breakfast
In this white-tiled cabin
Arabs call the House where
Everybody goes,
Even melancholics
Raise a cheer to Mrs.
Nature for the primal
Pleasure She bestows.
*** is but a dream to
Seventy-and-over,
But a joy proposed un-
-til we start to shave:
Mouth-delight depends on
Virtue in the cook, but
This She guarantees from
Cradle unto grave.
Lifted off the *****
Infants from their mothers
Hear their first impartial
Words of worldly praise:
Hence, to start the morning
With a satisfactory
Dump is a good omen
All our adult days.
Revelation came to
Luther in a privy
(Crosswords have been solved there)
Rodin was no fool
When he cast his Thinker,
Cogitating deeply,
Crouched in the position
Of a man at stool.
All the arts derive from
This ur-act of making,
Private to the artist:
Makers' lives are spent
Striving in their chosen
Medium to produce a
De-narcissus-ized en-
During excrement.
Freud did not invent the
Constipated miser:
Banks have letter boxes
Built in their façade
Marked For Night Deposits,
Stocks are firm or liquid,
Currencies of nations
Either soft or hard.
Global Mother, keep our
Bowels of compassion
Open through our lifetime,
Purge our minds as well:
Grant us a king ending,
Not a second childhood,
Petulant, weak-sphinctered,
In a cheap hotel.
Keep us in our station:
When we get pound-notish,
When we seem about to
Take up Higher Thought,
Send us some deflating
Image like the pained ex-
-pression on a Major
Prophet taken short.
(Orthodoxy ought to
Bless our modern plumbing:
Swift and St. Augustine
Lived in centuries
When a stench of sewage
Made a strong debating
Point for Manichees.)
Mind and Body run on
Different timetables:
Not until our morning
Visit here can we
Leave the dead concerns of
Yesterday behind us,
Face with all our courage
What is now to be.
13.9k
Toilet paper,
You are the only one who
Puts up with all my crap.
You listen when no one else will
To all my groaning and moaning.
You share all my private moments
And follow me from the bowels of hell
Into the plumbing of despair.
Toilet paper,
You have seen my most private parts,
The dark crevices of my flesh,
Where no one will go.
And should I sneeze
You will wipe my nose.
You will take away my filth,
And your softness can embrace
The sewage of my soul
And the flakes of flesh
That my heart has discarded.
Toilet paper,
You are the only one I know
Who kisses my ***
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 6:20 AM UTC
As a bisexual, I fear
Few will want you to be proud.
They will bend your ear
Saying things to you out loud
That would be better left
Totally, embarrassingly unsaid
Instead of rattling around
Inside the cathedral of your head.
Too many try to make it
Seem like a kind of venal crime
To want to make love with
Someone of your own kind
And maybe with the same
Gender with which you were born.
To some it is very biblical
And subjects you to public scorn.
Finding someone ****
With the same plumbing as you
It not only delightful
It can be a dream come true.
It feels correctly natural
And works like the other way
Even though people scorn
And use words like *** and ‘gay’
Or ****** and even taco
Whatever that might end up meaning.
The important thing to me
Bisexuality is so powerfully appealing.
So, those who dislike me
And feel so righteously zealous
That bisexuality is wrong
Are very possibly just jealous.
Or maybe just uptight
Living by someone’s else’s rules;
Not what they’ve learned
And therefore are bigoted fools.
Feb 26, 2016
Feb 26, 2016 at 10:57 PM UTC
For 21 days I saw changes wrought
by the freedom of 22 years
Secrets of razor wire straight and taut
Speak of those who continue to fear
I saw nature’s beauty in land and face
As black heel continues to rise
Via school, ambition they prep for the race
Even as secretly despised
What’s changed in Soweto? I did not live
But photos and newsreels survive
Pictures of shanties bulldozed to give
Whites room to extend their hives
Now malls; monuments to white retail
Built on Mandiba’s words
Polished chrome and marble hail
“Happy” workers in a black-faced world
Monuments ringed with vendors tribal
Carved goods for sale and cheap
The rands they make do not rival
What multi-nationals’ continue to reap
Happiness is shallow until sundown
When the curtain of decorum lifts
Showing reality’s new shanty-town
Where space and plumbing are gifts
I wonder if He would be okay
Seeing his people so used
As pawns for labor with little say
As black is seldom excused
The young know the time is now
As old hatred’s in shallow graves
To be unearthed by book and plow
Keeping dreams from stunting and fade
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 8:48 AM UTC
I'm startin' to run out of nursery rhymes
So, I made up one of my own
It's about a nearsighted plumber
That was accidently glued to his throne
Once upon a time, long, long ago
There was a plumber, who I'll call Dale
Poor old Dale had a hard time plumbing
Cause he really couldn't see very well
He'd gotten a call, "The toilet won't flush!
Please, can you come right away?"
Well, old Dale got in such a hurry
He forgot to take his glasses that day
Well, by the time old Dale had got there
The house was in quite a mess
He realized he'd forgotten his glasses
But he'd give that toilet his best
He'd not seen this since plumbing school
But then, he only saw it on a test
And by the time, he got his tools together
The water was starting to crest
He had spotted the problem right away
But remember now, he can only half see
The water was squirtin' six feet high
And poor Dale was only five foot three
He laid his glue on the toilet seat
While trying his best not to drown
He couldn't see where he put it at
And, of course, that's where he sat down
He didn't even know 'till it was too late
He'd bent over to loosen a nut
And that's when he first noticed that thing
The toilet was glued to his ****
So, if you ever need a real good plumber
He's the man for the job, without fail
And I hope you enjoyed this story
About the nearsighted plumber named Dale
I forgot tell you, there's one more thing
About the nearsighted plumber named Dale
That man still has that toilet seat
For the thing's still glued to his tail
© All Rights Reserved
Dec 4, 2010
Dec 4, 2010 at 7:59 PM UTC
The silver fog slithers around
my ankles, slowly winding up
my legs with a serpent's silk move.
Squeezing her fingers, my mother
and I approach the barn-red house.
It breathes heavily and its exhale
reveals a backyard cemetery.
As the mist settles, a limestone
hand reaches out to ****** her away.
Down the street the dollhouse neighbor
cannot see me screaming, weeping,
I call for help.
Brown-green water drips from
the bathroom ceiling--
the plumber continues plumbing.
Sweat beads form on the tip of
the fat priest's nose, as he climbs
the broken stairs, he continues preaching.
The porcelain girl wears her mother's
brown-stained ivory prom dress.
Chanting, Sonofabitch. Sonofabitch.
They cannot see me--
I flail my limbs.
They cannot hear me--
Their own cursing drown out my voice.
Jun 26, 2010
Jun 26, 2010 at 6:06 PM UTC
Strange question indeed,
So I asked one and all;
Explain to me:
“What's a plumber's ball?”
Family and friends
Heeded my call,
But none could confine,
Refine or define it,
Yet Paul was sure
He could design it.
Still, none could satisfy
My caterwaul:
“What the hell is a plumber's ball?”
Does it sweat the pipe
Or wiggle the snake:
Can it clamp the ******
For Heaven's sake?
Could it snap on the cock-hole cover?
All these queries
Made me wonder.
Has it something to do
With hardness leakage,
Or ******** the ball-cock
To stop a seepage?
Has it anything to do
With a saddle valve dripping,
Electric eels,
Or two pipes mating?
And, I heard of male and female fittings,
And should I worry
If I'm standing or sitting?
If you're discharging the head
Or elongating the pipe,
Does the plumber's ball
Help it snug tight?
Is it in my tank,
Or in my bowl,
Beneath the floor
Near the drainage hole?
Is the plumber's ball
In the back of the truck
(Jeff laughed and said
One could rub it for luck).
I asked Michel
If he could tell,
He sensed it was something
He could smell.
I sought out Ray,
Perhaps he'd know,
But he was on call
To restrain a back-flow.
I couldn't ask Gary
For his wisdom and sense,
He was wigglin' the snake
To unclog a wet vent.
Henry, Rick, Scotty and Brian,
Gave shameless answers
I couldn't rely on.
It's not a crapper, tail piece
Or Johnnie-bolt,
Or catch basin, reamer,
O-ring or pipe dope.
So I searched the Net
With a fool's wonder,
And read of ball-checks,
Gas ***** and plungers.
I know it's too late
To ask Rolly or Ross,
For both of them knew,
And that's our loss.
And Ernie's gone golfing
So I can't ask the Boss.
With final resolve
I fell to my knees,
To pray St. Ferrer
With grace intercede.
His silence left me
In a state of depression;
Had Ferrer washed his hands
Of the plumbing profession?
So nothing could settle
My wherewithal,
I still didn't know,
What's a plumber's ball?
Suddenly, it hit me,
He's never wrong,
The Dalai Lama of dip-tubes,
I'll ask John.
Where others did falter,
John's a rock:
He knows the difference
Between a gas and ball ****
With a knowing smile
He embraced our Hall:
Here, good friend, is your Plumbers' Ball.
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 9:10 AM UTC
777
The Loneliness One dare not sound—
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size—
The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see—
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny—
The Horror not to be surveyed—
But skirted in the Dark—
With Consciousness suspended—
And Being under Lock—
I fear me this—is Loneliness—
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate—or seal—
4k
going to the horror films
at ten years old
i wanted to be bitten by the vampire ladies
you know the ones
red brides from the netherworlds
with heaving *******
divinities of evil
with that dah look
in silky white gowns
a little messy from sleeping in the dirt
culture vulture goth girls
with upside down crosses
slags all gauzy bats in the belfry
deranged
but after all they where
dead
and dreadfully appealing
and I'm pretty fussy
so what the hell
they walked like floats
in marshy air
never touching the ground
above frozen dark crypt terrains
with twinkly bare feet
and black high glossed toenails
staring out of blood spilled eyes
drooling cloudy mouth hollows
and a yearning hungry countenance
encouraging me
to get closer
to bite me all over
pierce me
with needly fangs
puncturing little holes in tender me
making me leak like bad plumbing
until i sloped into the bog below
of course, i was panicked
all trembly
but i had a big one
for these evil shadowy ******* too
so i thought
yes
no
yes
no
yes
no
are you gonna **** me?
i asked
they drooled
ooow okay, i thought is it gonna hurt?
they shook there heads yes!
and drooled
real bad?
i inquired further
ah ha
they lingered glaring
drooling
i guess, waiting for me to make up my mind
oh okay anything for you
you dark dreamy girls
dilapidated queens of hell
with ballet derrières
"down and down I go
round and round I go
in a spin, lovin' the spin I'm in
under the old black magic called love"
after all at ten years old,
i already knew i was
a horror *****
and just a little turned on
Nov 29, 2017
Nov 29, 2017 at 11:58 AM UTC
Plumbing
screaming in pain
cleaning her drain
it was very clogged
I am very logged
loved my plumbers crack
she gave my *** a smack
faucet beginning to leak
from the point of the peak
ended up in bed
she gives good head
wanted bill to be free
told me during my morning ***
I said you lost your mind
so I poked her from behind
how about half price
she said sorry no dice
please free she would beg
as she played with my third leg
running wild was my imagination
you could feel my frustration
after the plumbing was all done
it turned out she was a nun
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 9:13 AM UTC
Who on Earth were these people
From the past, who made sense
Of a world without iPods, iPads or plumbing?
What’s up with those towering minds of yesteryear?
From where did they come and how come?
Goethe standing so tall
Voltaire you tower!
And bend over Beethoven,
I can’t reach your low five.
What grant of Gods favor gave them sight?
Awesome mighty minds of the past.
Descartes, I think so you are,
So smart that I think I am not.
Galileo you saw heaven before I had eyes.
Einstein, Da Vinci, Archimedes
You and your kind will all live forever,
Men will stand upon your shoulders
And then die.
Dec 11, 2012
Dec 11, 2012 at 10:00 PM UTC
"What kind of a person are you," I heard them say to me.
I'm a person with a complex plumbing of the soul,
Sophisticated instruments of feeling and a system
Of controlled memory at the end of the twentieth century,
But with an old body from ancient times
And with a God even older than my body.
I'm a person for the surface of the earth.
Low places, caves and wells
Frighten me. Mountain peaks
And tall buildings scare me.
I'm not like an inserted fork,
Not a cutting knife, not a stuck spoon.
I'm not flat and sly
Like a spatula creeping up from below.
At most I am a heavy and clumsy pestle
Mashing good and bad together
For a little taste
And a little fragrance.
Arrows do not direct me. I conduct
My business carefully and quietly
Like a long will that began to be written
The moment I was born.
s Now I stand at the side of the street
Weary, leaning on a parking meter.
I can stand here for nothing, free.
I'm not a car, I'm a person,
A man-god, a god-man
Whose days are numbered. Hallelujah.
3.2k
Wrongfully Accused
Everybody wants to know,
what happened so long ago.
It was a day just like this,
been awhile since I had to reminisce.
Got in my car and went to work,
back then, I was such a ****
Me and my wife had a huge fight,
it went on, all the past night.
Long before cell phones and beepers,
never even knew, she had some peepers.
Came home from a long day, with roses,
the house was destroyed by explosives.
Neighbors said they heard arguing,
all last night, till the morning.
No one saw any strange people,
after I left, everything seemed so peaceful.
I was questioned, then taken away,
put in prison, for quite a long stay.
Begged the judge for some mercy,
they found me guilty in a hurry.
Spent five long years in prison hell,
each night I was violated in my cell.
Then one day other houses started to explode,
all wives went on a lock down mode.
The evidence was so overwhelming,
meanwhile my ******* was swelling.
After six long years, I was finally released,
couldn't wait to get a real super feast.
Then I went on a man hunt,
this guys ***** I'm gonna punt.
Then there he was a peeping tom,
carrying what looks to be some kind of bomb.
Thought about calling the police,
but I figured, I could handle this ugly man who was bald and obese.
This guy never saw me coming,
his **** crack, made me think he was plumbing.
I grabbed the fat **** with gun in mouth,
it was him, I had no doubt.
I saw him before stalking my neighborhood,
what I'm gonna do to him will not be good.
Shot the ******* in the face,
his memory got a quick erase.
Brains splattered all over the ground,
his body was never found.
Stuck his fat *** in my trunk,
went to the bar and got super drunk.
Put him in the nearest lake,
still I had a major heartache.
I will say this, I never have pooped like this before,
but now my nightmares haunt me even more.
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 4:43 PM UTC
You can hire me for whatever
I'll fix your broken heart
Repair the plumbing within its walls
Repair the wholes in it
I'll do it all for free
You can hire me to kiss you
To hold you
And I'll never charge you anything
As long as you tell me you love me
And I'm able to love you
With a love even a god himself
Cannot buy with anything
I'm your free handyman
I'll do whatever you want
Give you what you need
Even if I don't have the power to do that
I will try anyways
Ti amo con tutto il mio cuore
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 9:10 PM UTC
The decaying mansions of English language
Rot and recede
into teenage grasses
with each unspoken year
The hired help have left their hair unmown and surrendered their uniform dress
Content with the neglect of nature
taking its timely course
When the architects and master masons of linguistics
Survey their forgotten plans in the heaven of English literature
They are not dismayed
but patiently sit and sit
The pristine edifices of the classics
Once grand and clad in deferential brick
Stand scaffolded and unread
The doors unlocked, ajar and hopelessly inviting
Into the library of the English canon
The dusty cloak on the carpets of grammar
Sheets thrown over the disused armchairs of archaic words
Echoing the plink of the out-of-tune pianoforte of the perfectly crafted short story
Bathrooms of formal poetry
With the rusty plumbing of metre and rhyme
Whereas the temporary outhouses,
hastily arranged huts of slang and idiom
are adorned by the living grasses of new forms,
creepers of half remembered dreams
mulching leaves of half formed thoughts
forests of half forgotten loves
writhing in living incompleteness
Which will in turn harden and fossilize
And we can then rue the passing of our once organic lingo
Dec 14, 2009
Dec 14, 2009 at 10:18 AM UTC
The electricity
in that moment,
when your hand first
brushed past mine,
could have lit up New York City
for the night.
I could have lived in that moment.
Plugged in.
Turned on.
But, in the same way we got used to
light switches and indoor plumbing,
I got used to your touch.
What I wouldn't give
to go back to candlesticks and outhouses
for just one night
so that when you reach for my hand tomorrow,
I won't be jaded by the light that now seems
so perfectly ordinary.
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 5:39 PM UTC
In good nature
or a manipulative experiment,
I continued to devour
your last leftovers
from boxes signed
in your name,
as average roommates do,
cluttering the sink
with such vile remains
under murky waters, stagnant
from congested plumbing,
all in hopes to one day
hear your voice.
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 1:03 AM UTC
So I was sitting at home watching a movie when nature called me and told me that it was time to drain my bladder. She is such a sweet lady. So I do my business and I flush the toilet. but oh no! It wouldn’t stop running! If it keeps running like that, it will make the water bill go up which would cause our family grief beyond anything!
I was taken aback and scared at this atrocity, making me realize that the toilet demon has come again to make us pay for using his burial site for plumbing. I gathered all of the courage that I could muster and I screamed, “I will save this house from the toilet demon!”
I took the lid off of back and could hear the demon laughing at me as he kept the water running, I notice that the water would stop if I kept a piece held up. But alas! It wouldn’t stay up! I thought deeply on what to do. There were no rubber bands and tape wouldn’t hold. But string would! So I rushed to the armory, otherwise known as the pantry, and I found some string, and some electric tape as well! I gathered my tools and with a battle cry, I rushed back to the bathroom. I could have swore that I heard the yells of other men, and the sounds of horses plowing through the ground, while the music from the film 300 played out loud.
I rushed into the bathroom and lifted my tools! Then the water stopped and the toilet had finished its cycle and all was silent and still. I cursed, dropped everything, and went back to sit down and watch my movie, thinking that I let the plumbing get a little out of hand.
The End
Jan 11, 2013
Jan 11, 2013 at 5:35 PM UTC
i am the piper
cept my pipes are
a bit rusty
out of tune
melancholy
its too late for monthly checkups
but you never seem to mind
but you see the only reason they are
so worn out
is because i sing my melody
as loud and beautiful as I can
every time we do the dance of passion
no, they can't be rusty
because
i've serenaded so many other women before you
that can't be
you,
your melody is sweet, pure, harmonious
but of course, you've only just started
you make me feel like an old man
whose pipes have seen generations
i almost feel bad serenading such a pure heart
but i know what will happen
you will leave me soon
yes, I know from our passion dances that you
love me
but when you find another whose music is sweeter
more pure than my coarseness
i promise
you will love him more
its only a matter of time...
Apr 12, 2012
Apr 12, 2012 at 1:29 PM UTC
We are of the ocean
salt water green, lime and seaweed
clinging and threaded, verily suspended
in the far off edges, ebbing unseen
steeped in luminous moons, impossibly colored
a darkness, plumbing ageless depths of sea
strung with opulent pearls, swallowed by fields of sand
a light discovered in the shoal shimmering lands.
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 9:28 PM UTC
The topography of your body...
Is the landscape
I call home.
Scaling your heights
plumbing your depths...
your wetlands
and peaks.
If I were blind
I could find my way
by tracing your form
with my greedy hands.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 8:06 PM UTC
Baie dankie—thank you—
Surrounded us as we shared our lunch
With empty-handed children,
And we heard it again painting
The tiny playground for Sister Catherine,
Though my head focused on the “bye,”
Gracious and dismissive
To the nameless Americans,
Taking pictures of their town.
Baie dankie said the woman
With liquor on her breath—
*Back to your selfies and indoor plumbing
Your clear conscience, your noble heart.*
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 10:26 PM UTC
There's a fella you've all heard of
From a sandy foreign place
He was sent down by his daddy
From somewhere in outer space
He died and he came back again
Then he hit the dusty road
Now he's there for me with a helping hand
When I've almost dropped my load
Jesus is my barman
I munch his salty nuts
He fills me up with lovin'
Till it rumbles in my guts
He's my one almighty Hoover
He ***** off all my sin
To all my tricky crevices
He bravely enters in
He eases through my tightest spots
He's always got my back
He lubricates my passage
Down the narrow winding track
He tinkers with my plumbing
Removes my stubborn stains
Then with his holy implement
He firmly rods my drains
Jesus is my bell-boy
In his elevatin' craft
He pushes on my button
Then he takes me up the shaft
He's my fire fighting saviour
When flames begin to roar
He grabs his mighty helmet
And he breaks in my back door
He's captain of my ******
Commander of my boats
Don't worry if you're sinkin' fast
Cos Jesus always floats
If you're cold and need to light a fire
The lord is right and good
There's one thing he's remembered for
It’s always having wood
Jesus is my dentist
He drills me with his bit
He fills up all my cavities
Then I gargle and I spit
And one day when it’s legal
We'll end our secret fling
With his ring on my finger
And his finger in my ring
Feb 8, 2013
Feb 8, 2013 at 10:46 AM UTC
A mechanized millennium
studded
with silver rivets hammered from
the once glorious dreams of the populace
They are now all identical.
cylindrical
instruments that pierce the flesh of progress
conformity:
the price paid to advance across the toll bridge
that is "the betterment of society"
But bland and boring can hardly be better
than stark and standoffish rants of individual pipe dreams
They took those too-
the pipe dreams are now piping in the plumbing that runs beneath the streets
we walk all over them.
only half realizing they exist and not half caring
anymore
with spirits that lack luster our
low lackluster dreams are dying
Apr 4, 2012
Apr 4, 2012 at 3:10 PM UTC
the night i met a map maker
who'd never seen the world
i found out that this living life
slowly comes unfurled
with every sought experience
and everything undone,
granted we are shoelaces
tied and gone ho-gung
so much so that we don't know
the order of our things,
like when we meet a pretty girl
we take her off some rings
and when the rings come ringing by
the anchor on your ship
i answer the phone and to him say
i'll never take your ****
to my house
because i don't have indoor plumbing.
Apr 9, 2012
Apr 9, 2012 at 2:52 AM UTC