"seepage" poems
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
We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening--
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encrouching horizon,
Is wooed into the cyclops' eye
Of a tarn. Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun.
They've taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk
Out of the peat, set it up
An astounding crate full of air.
Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter
Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
By millions of years.
They'll never dig coal here,
Only the waterlogged trunks
Of great firs, soft as pulp.
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards,
Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.
4.2k
The mask of vengeance is not to be confused
with the seepage of hurt and confusion.
Something to blame, to get in the way
of a blazing fire providing.
Kindle it with substance and truth,
but instead with damp lies and gritty sand.
An effort of competence in place
of the evading truth that sometimes
the idea of affinity diminishes
in the hole of bewitching fruits.
A spell to take hold of the clean,
turning ***** in morality. Excuses
to remain pure at heart, blame to never
feel the pain of rejection.
Darkness.
Pain.
Loneliness.
Desperation.
Anointing the headless children without
a thought of the purpose. Watering a rootless
tree, attempting to make it grow.
Mar 20, 2012
Mar 20, 2012 at 7:39 AM UTC
My minotaur has mad cow's disease.
The FDA is rounding up each one
in a forty mile radius for slaughter.
They're incinerating the bodies
at the trash-to-steam factory. I hear
gunfire and wailing children. Sharon
next door is in shock. She's been
on her knees down on the lawn
mumbling, "please, please, please,"
for the last two hours. Crimson clouds
bleed into sunrise. How will we
escape the seepage?
I'll stop at the Getty for a car wash
before I pick you up. Have some
sandwiches packed.
O for the love of God,
the moos, the moos.
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 9:25 PM UTC
Band-aids to prevent the social infections that could eventually
spread to the frontal lobe,
Diseases started on Fox News, spread to the living room,
circulate around the family dinner table
putting victims of ignorance on the coroner’s slab
Alleviate the pain.
Should we let the gapping wounds of intolerance fester, decay and grow maggots?
***** bigotry, vile illiteracy, primitive ideas coat the skins of society like a black goo.
Band-aids: self adhesive bandages
We aren’t teachers. We are medics.
covering the gapping wounds of life
lathering the lesions with Neosporin.
Healing the scars from parenting gone wrong
- scars from wounded self-esteems
-lacerations to the proverbial heart
Scars lasting longer than the body itself.
No one knows where its impact will end.
Band-aids
temporary fix
heal the wound fast, heal the hurt faster
A Johnson and Johnson remedy for damaged organisms
Well-meaning ones hurling scriptures scald hands with tainted words
Healing is a matter of time.
Arm teachers to protect children from the crazies who loom?
What will protect them from their own inherited ignorance?
The damage is already done when they get here.
Equip us with Band-Aids, boxes and boxes.
Hello Kitty over their ears to block the infection from coming in
Spiderman for their mouths. Stop the seepage of any contamination from spreading to others.
The remaining scars will fade, but not disappear.
even with a band-aid.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 8:13 PM UTC
He turns the page
Of old age
For what was once the rage
Now sits in his cage
It's been a war to wage
This, life's final stage
The pressure gauge
Ticking on so outrage
Ticking by in ménage
For his book's cleavage
Untouched and derange
Year's wasted and disengaged
If only there was no leakage
Or ever such seepage
Life on his barren range
With no panacea to assuage
No wife ever, no cat, no life to engage
Nothing but red read rage
Now in his final chapter, this cage
This cage, death does he part this rampage
A life perched without marriage
For he married to himself backstage
Where his curtain veiled fruitage
In lieu of looking at the skies for dosage
He fell hostage to his hermitage
Yet this, his bottled pilgrimage
Sinking now in raging montage
He does sit beseeched in his passage
And hopes someday to bid bon voyage
With direr hopes of turning a better page
Logan Robertson
9/27/2018
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 5:57 AM UTC
a cucumber sandwich
shouldn't be made ahead of time
as the liquid in the cucumber
will seep through the bread like lime
you'll have a wet hand
as you lift the sandwich off the plate
your palm and your fingers
will be in a saturated fate
always make cucumber sandwiches
immediately before afternoon tea
at this juncture of time the bread
will not become so soggy
your afternoon tea guests wont abide
the seepage all over their hands
it will make them feel like
jeering spectators in a grandstand
the most tempting cucumber sandwiches
are never served wringing wet
they have a dry bread covering
akin to an indoor carpet
to stop this sort
of sandwich irrigation
you must follow
these preparatory recommendations
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 8:15 PM UTC
My minotaur has mad cow's disease.
The FDA is rounding up each one
in a forty mile radius for slaughter.
They're incinerating the bodies
at the trash-to-steam factory. I hear
gunfire and wailing children. Sharon
next door is in shock. She's been
on her knees down on the lawn
mumbling, "please, please, please,"
for the last two hours. Crimson clouds
bleed into sunrise. How will we
escape the seepage?
I'll stop at the Getty for a car wash
before I pick you up. Have some
sandwiches packed.
O for the love of God,
the moos, the moos.
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 6:04 PM UTC
(seep yourself to leak away)
all reveals are feints;
I take you right
but I am moving left,
always left,
then left again
when I turn the faucet of me on,
brown, rusty pipe water comes out,
never turning clear,
even if the flow
went on for a millennium
someone traveller passerby
reads my excellent explicit illicit words,
with kind sweetness
observes a valid conclusion:
Poems take.a lot out of you
correct+wrong
not take, give
they are the slow seepage
of my overburdening
which is
yes, yes, I know, all relative,
but perspective is a
sometime summer thing,
and all the springtime streets
filled with filthy frozen slush
having come from some rusty water leakage,
never turning clear
no matter how long the street runs away
from you
so you take yourself to give away,
seeping and leaking
ah words;
so useful and so inadequate
crushed petals from the Tree of Life
you ask me If I have read my brother,
the prophet-poet Jeremiah?
*The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?*
*When your words came, I ate them;
they were my joy and my heart's delight*
*Then the Lord reached out his hand unto my mouth and said,
"I have put my words in your mouth."*
these are those words
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 3:25 PM UTC
Death is inevitable
Choosing when is not
Launching from the shore
Place the oar deep into our regrets
Haul away from lifes spinning current
Death is something to earn
Justify your parents joy each day
Explore those eddies in your travelling feet
Take the hand of your rudder
Placing certainty in the direction of travel
Death is not an end but a staging post of a earthly pontoon
Experience lifes engulfing tributaries first
Find your anchorage for each night and day
Caulk the small cracks that appear daily before you explore a watery bed
Leave no small seepage pass unaccounted
No day deserves to exist without your helping hand
Bravery is making this world what it is with your presence
Apr 23, 2023
Apr 23, 2023 at 8:22 AM UTC
Why are there entire cities to drain,
When Somewhere in my village,
People are dying for a drop of rain
Coming from a cave through a seepage?
Why are many places flooded elsewhere
When the drought there is constant
And People are struggling everywhere
To moisturize the soil just to plant?
Why are young Maasai men digging
For hours Into the patched African soil
Searching way into the humid evening
For a drop of water, they have to toil?
Why did nature leave my playground arid
When she rains down billions of liters in Texas?
Streetlights, no lights, drought at the power grid,
Scolding of nature is the caveat of the water crisis.
Why did God give us diamonds and gold,
How can he bless us with an abundance of minerals?
Then seal up the skies and put the rains on hold?
Turning the crisis to a vulture's feast and human funerals.
#IvanBrooksPoetry©️
Jan 22, 2018
Jan 22, 2018 at 2:27 PM UTC
a cucumber sandwich
shouldn't be made ahead of time
as the liquid in the cucumber
will seep through the bread like lime
you'll have a wet hand
when you lift the sandwich off the plate
your palm and fingers
will be in a saturated state
always make cucumber sandwiches
immediately before afternoon tea
as at this juncture of time
the bread will not be so soggy
your afternoon tea guests won't abide
the seepage all over their hands
it will make them feel like
jeering as spectators in a grandstand
the most tempting cucumber sandwiches
are never served wringing wet
they have a dry bread cover
akin to an indoor carpet
to stop this sort of sandwich irrigation
you must follow these preparatory recommendations
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 8:21 PM UTC
Another crack is in the concrete
More seepage from the Dam
How many will be in the way
When the whole thing crashes in
So many with an opinion
On things they do not know
With no one who is willing
To take the time to plug the hole
Do we not see the flood of ignorance
Bursting at the seams
I believe this time the sky falling
Whether or not the chicken screams
Blind in our understanding
Destruction will clear the path
The Dam is clearly bursting
Is it to late to hold it back
What we need as a people
Is the wisdom to come together
To help stop the Dams destruction
Instead of blaming its construction on each other
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 7:26 AM UTC
Lately, I've tried to relate greatly to the daily slew of poppy brew and wisdom grew by the tv news crew spittin their wisdom from the pedestal push of the routine pedal stool mush that slid across the floor of lava rocks and hot spots that rupture soon enough when the keys rattle in doorknob and the whiny creak opens with meek silhouettes on shadowy walls of latex seepage...the colors' fingers stretch from the threads, penetrate the outlet, crawl through the cord, and tap my brain through the spine post run. Whiskey was the inception, but the jar was the culprit for sure: the vessel that drilled my brains and scratched the black background noise of my dreams. Logic plays in the background but the car fume imagery bores me lately. Need someone else to care to pretend for a minute, need two cafecitos to go, need three job securities to take a vacation from three life voids, y necesito una chica seria for the rest of this conversation...unless the inconvenience of engagement confuses she like the language attempts on me. Gone fishing, for the missing, for the family don't listen, for the docks do rock, and the waves make the the light prowl the wake off the take of the bow of the ballast aft tower. Opportuney viola sin duda, ninazungumza kiswahili...clock me in, blanket spanker, tuck away your worries. I love you and care about you too
Dec 11, 2015
Dec 11, 2015 at 1:42 AM UTC
Unbeknowst to all,
The tree of life has three stages.
Trunk. Branch. Oil.
Terrence Malick knew this.
Dinosaurs our oil.
Ten sephira. One oil.
It is my burden of dreams, I shall prevail through the pongo del muerto.
Foucault's pendulum spilling sand. Spilling oil.
Scaoil. Release. Urchar.
Sraith pictiúr a ceathar.
Airborne toxic event.
Seepage Daniel. Seepage.
Put Oil.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 7:15 PM UTC
dropped hard to the floor
the crumpled sound of dead weight
his cracked skull oozing
lifeless body releases
blood, ***** and seepage run
the stench of death fades
bones gnawed clean by sated rats
start to fossilize
just another new entry
in his basement collection
Del Maximo
© September 18, 2009
Jan 23, 2010
Jan 23, 2010 at 2:22 PM UTC
Choose your satirical weapon of choice,
Draw a three-dimensional box and conceal the hidden within a two-dimensional sphere,
Needle-point holes squeeze tightly, a misty spray like that of a busted soda-pop can,
The knowledge leaks consistently into the universe, morphing tear droplets into The Great Lakes,
These ten toes hover and glance over the edge, zoning prints like words in a descending motion,
A touch of the shoulder from a folded palm gently comforting and confirming life above this Earth,
A speedy squeeze of all five joints, now on my knees, the gravel latches onto my scabs, pushing and pounding through the pain,
Molars grind, tongue-dried, salty saliva salvaged, yet sitting silently on a secretive cold-sore,
The knowledge is flooding the dam gates, burying ankles in piercing hot grains of sand, diving into a castle's moat, a rush like traffic on a Friday evening,
The world seeps into the depths of my transparent drain,
The seepage creeps slowly downwards into a mental shaft constructed purposely for psychological phenomenon,
I worry there may be excessive overspill of rescued reality,
An unopened present, the anticipation and expectation as a child dreams,
As the gaps and cracks expand, I am able to touch base with memories as they pour outwards like a dog's busted territorial marker, a firefighter's ammunition,
Extinguish the forrest fire,
Paint the canvas gently with a spin of the color wheel,
Play the part of a lonely plumber,
Plug every hole.
Oct 11, 2013
Oct 11, 2013 at 1:48 PM UTC
when I disclaim that
there be no poem today
I suggest you
put me in the dock,
hit the chess clock,
to time the length
tween my lies
sit me down in
the witness stand,
to better see
the holes in me,
from which word seepage,
grey matter leakage,
blackened white slush mush,
covers my face and hands,
and with fingers splayed
in the V
of a Spock like Cohenic blessing,
I make
my beginning and ending
Commencement Speech,
a recitation of incantations,
an eye on the pyramid inspiration
of cockeyed cantorial hymnations
Like this:
there is only one Godhead
that the spirits that allow me
breathing space in this world
and the one yet to come,
demand of me, worship -
It would be at the altar
of momentary fears
that clarify the whole,
the unifying principle,
that my blinded eyes,
my Pharaoh hardened heart,
my closed and deafened ears
see, soften and hear and believe!
I am slave to the
Gods of Poetry,
their truth, my lies,
stirred in one ***
and as I live and breathe
I am rewired
with a new poem every day,
an addict who cannot obey,
who cannot afford to pay
the judicial costs
of the cease and desist order
of his own common sense
Jan 2, 2011 10:05 AM
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 12:45 AM UTC
slight crack allows seepage
slowly undermining the structural integrity
allowing erosion free reign
trickle with enough particulates to encourage life
on its own
runs down the face
exposed –
supports tumble, clattering
bits too boulders
torrential force pushes away remaining derbies
sending wave after wave
pyroclastic flow –
distant thunder rolls in without a cloud one
explosions from afar
trembling from within
excitement for what is to come –
the abandonment of emotional baggage
open to a fault
disintegrating damaged walls
new bridges through conversation
released while behind bars –
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 2:47 PM UTC
girl -
your silence tears upon me
a savage beast mute
for in your intermittent groans on gusts of ire
masked in murmurs curt
seepage coarse, acrid leaks
girl -
tell me straight, hide not my fate
your real intent upon these clouds benign
for when the heat of marinated fury bursts
erupts one day on bowed head sad
intent on living life in peace
girl -
will it ruin times of joy we knew
bursts of copper, gold and red
no separation there but alchemy of spirits free
so what is it that ails you friend
arms folded eyes aflame in chilled blind rage
Feb 24, 2017
Feb 24, 2017 at 4:54 AM UTC
whipped back across the line
in harsh tones of childhood trauma
vile acidic tongue
lapped and corroded the biodome,
which maintains the constructs
of who I am needed to be
white smoke fills the black space
changing gray as it wafts through
ever so slowly
Patch the chemical burn!
Patch it NOW!
before it compromises emotion
before it spreads and corrupts
the foundation of all
the slightest justification
can stop the seepage
Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies
honesty isn't truth
when used as a weapon
watching the dome slowly fail
smoke seeping through pinholes
waiting for the death of hope
frozen in place by hateful expressions
of those who claim not to care
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 10:58 AM UTC
I lay on the floor my soul dissolving and melting from me.
A pressure is pushing onto my heart, I can’t move, breathe or see.
How can I become muscle and bones?
So I can stop the seepage of life, the tears and the moans.
The sadness overpowers me and kidnaps my mind.
The weakness of my pathetic being is cruel and unkind.
I’m oozing away as each minute goes by
Drowning in sadness, I gasp for air and I cry.
Apr 19, 2011
Apr 19, 2011 at 5:30 PM UTC
In this hour of lead;
within walls that have
contained the seepage
of a families turbulence,
I swipe a light finger
over her former belongings,
leaving a trail in dust
to mark a temporary presence.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 3:59 PM UTC
my well has begun to dry
the water seeping through the growing cracks
burrowed by the little mice
who carry away the pieces of my structure
allowing the seepage to continue on
until all that's left is dust and bone
my tongue of sand
weighted against formerly flowing words
drowning on the dryness
of severed ties
the water disappoints
now surely i must leave
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 5:59 PM UTC