"recyclables" poems
My wife always nags me.
This seems to be a problem with most women I marry.
Or most women in general.
They all nag me.
I'm laid back.
Or as my past wives say,
"lazy".
Sure, you could say that,
but I prefer the term,
laid back.
Anyway,
so my wife is always nagging me.
"Do the dishes" she says.
"Do the laundry" she says.
"Vacuum the house" she says.
Eventually, I would do it.
But the nagging got worse.
"Fix the squeaky front door" she says.
"Clean out the gutters" she says.
"Sort the trash from the recyclables" she says.
Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore.
I had enough.
So I took my wife,
and threw her in a vat of acid.
I watched as her skin slowly melted off her body,
like ice cream melting on an ice cream cone,
minus the stickiness.
I watched her hair dry up,
and disintegrate into nothing.
Her fingernails slowly fell off,
and her eyes began to slip out of her head,
as she let out a final scream.
She looked just as beautiful as she did the first day I met her.
My eyes feasted on the greatness before them,
although it does get kind of boring after the fourth time.
Nonetheless, I still enjoyed it.
There's nothing like throwing your half asleep wife in a vat of acid on a cold Sunday morning.
Apr 3, 2012
Apr 3, 2012 at 9:56 PM UTC
Mechanic
Photographer
Writer
Poet
Boy genius
Slacker
Son ?
Dad ?
Dad
What else do I see in the mirror
Why does the thought of me being you scare me in the most exciting way
We fight
You speak better with your fist than you ever have with words
And what if one day my words are jumbled in the cracking of knuckles
Don't cry son
Big boys don't cry
Choke it back
Be strict in a lenient way and
One day it will be you hated
One day it will be you who fight with the mother of your children
And stop fighting with the mother of mine
Why do you do this
Why is she crying again
Oh my god I am just like you
We are two of the only men that can bring her to tears
Say you'll leave
Say you'll leave and make her fall
She keeps grasping you In a picture
The Funeral :
which one of us will die first
With your old age
And my stupid addictions
If it were me would you cry
If it were you would I
No matter what would happen.
I gave an arm for you
And I would proudly give more
I look back to days of fishing in a creek
Getting our feet wet but still walking with shoes on because broken glass isn't forgiving in the slightest way
Where was your alcoholic rage that should have been passed down from generations above you
Where was that Irish man temper with a Portuguese flare
Where were you when the police picked me up and I was no longer your son
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
But somethings need to be burned
That trash cans with recyclables called to my eco friendly egotistical pyromaniac self
The words echo like that slap in the face At our kitchen table
You are dead to me
You were born first.
But on that day, I would die last.
As time flies
Your health isn't standing
I'm slowly being force to migrate as the head of this house
This broken family with my brother moving up the street
Somehow still by your side
Out of one side of his mouth saying I love but out of the other side cursing your lies
Two daughters, that will be nothing like us
Two daughters that will be brought up in a broken generation
Two daughters that put hammer to the nail finalizing the responsibilities that follow the title of
I an uncle
He a father
And you an elder
With these children around I've made the full discovery of something that has always been there
Through the hard times you've stuck by our side.
I love you dad
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 8:04 AM UTC
We're the dirt inside your trash bins
The lonely, awkward has-beens
Dead for the night
Could you turn on the light?
Mar 20, 2011
Mar 20, 2011 at 6:14 PM UTC
so,
i saw a piece of you
the other day.
i found you out in the yard.
and. i used to find you
everyday,
but,
we are the inside of a silverware drawer when the lights go out.
We are an old can of soda
we are the underside of a frying pan.the hinges of medicine cabinet mirror.the back of a fake hand gun
a pocketfull of chemical hand warmers
The washing label on shrunken, favorite, sweatshirt-
storeboughtstarmarketpumpkinpie.
Brooding at the breakfast table.
a telephone that rings when you don’t want it to.
we are nylon down vest- reversible- tucked inbetween
arm and
oilskin hat.
We are dead houseplants.
homemade radiator covers,
feet under the covers
we are waking up
we are slacking off in class.hating other people.wading into bathtubwater. I. hurt her daughter
polished like a powderhorn.hurting like a can of vegetarian baked beans.
like an old pocketknife.
we are
pantsless in the hallway. we are backyard garden. we are tripping over the recyclables on a sunday.
we are good radio song.
we wanted garlic.butter we got hotdogs instead.
That’s supermarket poetry. It hit us.
golden and radiant-
as the smiles in the cereal aisle.
And it was cold outside.
the milk froze in the car
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 1:47 AM UTC
Aliens from outer space,
Annoyingly hovering above,
Invade my trash most Sunday nights.
They're after the recyclables
--cans, paper, plastic,
Whatever they can get their
Spindly grubby hands on.
Whether they plan to use
The stuff to build a doomsday weapon,
Piece of nifty gym equipment,
Or some fancy headdress,
Who's to say?
I just wish
The little buggers would clean up their mess,
Instead of leaving it
For me on Monday morning.
Dec 30, 2019
Dec 30, 2019 at 3:47 PM UTC
bah bah black sheep... ok... the black sheep knuckled you to sleep
and now you’re asking for directions using a map and not a satellite navigation
across europe, esp. tremendous in germany near dortmund
and the rhine cities getting confused... but that’s no reason
to drive with ease from new jersey to florida with a glum pickers' pride
en route... i can play the ‘i spy with my little’ game into midnight passing me and spare myself inventive optics -
like shadow like hallucination in consistency, both flimsy,
i can recognise the real filth from packaged recyclables
from the orient.
well there’s that and there’s old russell the schizoid affective
outside tesco drinking a bottle of old speckled hen
and talking about snowfalls... 3 / 4 years ago last time i spotted
saint clause... i slipped and imagined myself breaking a knee...
didn’t happen... what happened was was a clearer truth:
why this fake image stimulant... i cant’ watch the stars
but have to subconsciously watch candy crush?
it’s **** i want the days within the insignia of war,
i don’t want my subconscious patented with candy crush,
i want the stars to remain... better an autocrat than a technocrat...
at least a human face... adolf touchy-feely,
here we go...
i imagine all those rivers of heraclitus concerning a coordinate
known as a waterfall... and post-humous exactness expressing peace...
then i spot picasso on the roof outside my bedroom window...
i support his elevation through evangelicalism from halo to angels wings...
you know what the three wise babylonians said...
you scared them to egypt you idiot announcing reign of the ditto,
you scared them them with myrrh, melchior you’re already close to malachi,
that will do... look at it... it’s babylonian already...
it’s a babylon of orthodox christianity (greek / russian), catholicism,
protestantism, baptists, pantheists and other offshoots
like being mormon!
well you can never make an omelette by the dozen involved
without asking the thirteenth egg: chicken or egg first? crucifix?! oh.
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 8:57 PM UTC
I know the quietest way
to crack an egg.
The softest way to close
a door. How to pour
the water into a tilted
glass so it doesn't splash
back. A bird chirps at
just under sixty decibels.
A light bulb sings at
fifteen. I dream
of polymer chains snapping
clean, recyclables humming
to each other at night
while they biodegrade
at a rate negligible
to the human timescale.
Twenty decibels: the chiral
calcite spiral of the snail
when it falls to the sand,
when it dies,
when a girl apologizes
for asking a question.
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 4:44 PM UTC
Hustle and bustle of underground merry plaza showcase, the underbelly, the underlife, the true essence of the show going on at 8, men speaking rhythmically, eating quickly, with waste boxes, recyclables, the news is digestible, a man forages for answers in his phone, digging with his thumbs, and another reaches through the speaker to try to hear the close, the head anchored up, the scarf hanging at the direction towards the sun, oh the glamorous walls and the anxious souls, oh the marble staircase and the jansport backpack, more cleaning services than surfaces, less times more money, more money, less time, time is like money, it freezes and then it flows, what was the expression again? Only the smell of coffee is lucrative, only the stench of ***** diapers, babies, in a place like this, where murmers are murmurs and eat isn't required but fufilled then joked about over digestion, a proper coffee break, he is of an ash tray the men gossip, not directly, but imply, stick to facts but hierarchies fill in like water into a ravine, never obscene, silent struggles to an invisible top held by Rockefeller who is no longer in this world, his spirit keeps some sort of hope driving noses into the pizza lunches, and the limitless contemplaions, the tough desicions, men around coffee are women amidst vultures, who has a higher grasp, whose the one getting cursed, overdone, overpowered, the cards turning in silence, literally in glances, a polite face turns to a disappointed hatred in seconds, perfect, like a diamond
Aug 20, 2015
Aug 20, 2015 at 1:38 AM UTC
The rain drops drizzling
On the aluminum awning
Reminds me of the way your hands
Would gracefully tease piano keys
And make the most beautiful sound.
A man so kind he makes heartbreak
Taste like honey and settle the same way
On your tongue,
A sweetness savored,
from a sour savior.
I sort stale feelings like recyclables,
But can’t bring myself to throw anything away.
The way your floor is littered with pens and pennies,
Makes me think of how when you arrive home,
You empty the day and your pockets onto the ground
In a most imperfect fashion
When you are alone.
A crack in the mask
And a chasm in façade.
I deserve you,
Whether that is as a consequence
Or reward,
I will never know
For so bittersweet it has been to know you.
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 9:20 PM UTC