"spigot" poems
1235
Like Rain it sounded till it curved
And then I new ’twas Wind—
It walked as wet as any Wave
But swept as dry as sand—
When it had pushed itself away
To some remotest Plain
A coming as of Hosts was heard
It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools
It warbled in the Road—
It pulled the spigot from the Hills
And let the Floods abroad—
It loosened acres, lifted seas
The sites of Centres stirred
Then like Elijah rode away
Upon a Wheel of Cloud.
16.1k
there is always that space there
just before they get to us
that space
that fine relaxer
the breather
while say
flopping on a bed
thinking of nothing
or say
pouring a glass of water from the
spigot
while entranced by
nothing
that
gentle pure
space
it's worth
centuries of
existence
say
just to scratch your neck
while looking out the window at
a bare branch
that space
there
before they get to us
ensures
that
when they do
they won't
get it all
ever.
12.6k
no weapons, no drugs.
he had the eyeballs of an aztlan prince.
touches water.
touches hot-grill to meat /repeat/
/replete with cerveza.
to roil in love of sun said lights, all things lovely.
to return by city driven lights, lake to shore to shoulder.
[to sleep.]
[to dream.]
dad is on the grill, cookin’ up something scorched.
swill is on the lake, skiin’ up something else.
sweat &
stretching lungs, the sun busting gut.
unseen, bikini pink
& green sauce.
pass the tortillas.
winterous: awake.
ice-fish and stoke the pipes of flash and holy hash.
ice-fish our favorite frozen mass.
we all grow beards,
untrusting of men who wobble blades to their faces on the daily.
spring sprung and spigot. we
return to blushing shores of wet rocks
& girlfriends.
girl bands exploding amps from atop houseboats
in styles of the highly drunk and tameless.
plucked in memory
of the ******* to come before them.
Nov 21, 2014
Nov 21, 2014 at 7:31 PM UTC
~explaining light to the blind~
~for Suzy~
the insanity of even attempting
who among us, the sighted,
has the capability to clarify
an animate inanimate,
an untouchable invisible,
that can be folded, bent,
travel universes unseen
at its own chosen speed,
even to another sighted
and to the blind...
imagine then light
as something that
be recognized from the inside only with
in- sight
~***think of the continuum from
warmth to steel furnaced heat,
that is an element of what is light,
the sun cheek kissing, the furnace of chests
when you grasp another’s body first time
think of light as water,
the faucet spigot a measured pouring,
that can overshoot, the stream behind the house,
a toe tickling masseuse caress,
a dam’s waterfall endless crashing,
a sea, wave licking sudden raging dangerous
blend these sensations that belong to all,
and you’ll know light better than most,
indeed, light is for those who cannot vision
except from the inside with a sight that can be
touched, felt, imagined, and which the sightless
command better than us ordinary thoughtless
indeed light is as simple to understand as
abc,
which you have never seen, but creates the words
that we all
use
even share***~
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 6:34 AM UTC
It's not OCD
I'm just anal-rententive.
There are two
coffee urns
in my office kitchenette.
Each urn has
a spot to place your mug
beneath the spigot.
Each of these spots has
a circular insert
of gridded plastic
to mark the mug-placement area
and allow spilled coffee to flow through
so this spot
doesn't become
just a puddle of coffee
soaking the bottom of everyone's mugs.
Each of these inserts has
three indentations:
one on each side
at nine and three o'clock
small, arcing parabolas
like reversed parentheses
there to allow someone to
get their fingers into the
coffee mug spot
and under the insert
to remove it
and, presumably
clean it
and then another indentation
more like a groove
or a notch
much smaller, thinner, and deeper
at the top
that fits perfectly with
a matching
small plastic protuberance
jutting from the coffee mug spot
where the insert goes.
In an almost ****** fashion
this protuberance fits into
this last indentation
this notch
this groove
to secure the insert in place.
For some reason
I've never known
perhaps laziness
perhaps inattentiveness
more likely simple
couldn't-care-less-ness
this insert never seems to be
placed into the mug spot
properly.
It is always placed sideways
rotated a quarter-turn
so that the larger indentations
on the side
meant as finger holes
are placed top-to-bottom
noon and six
the small plastic protuberance at the top
being swallowed whole
by the too-large indentation
and its mate
the groove
meant to hold the plastic piece
so tightly
is left alone
to one side
empty
and useless.
This has always bothered me.
Bothered me more than I would like to admit.
It's such a simple little thing to get right
it would take almost no effort at all
and yet, day-after-day
someone
I don't know who
whoever is in charge of these things
insists
on doing it wrong.
And I cannot abide it.
So, day-after-day
when I go to get my morning coffee
I fix it
I twist the insert ninety-degrees
and secure it in the correct position.
Lately
I have noticed something.
Sometimes
when I go to get my coffee
one of the inserts
will already be
fixed.
Someone else has seen
what I have seen
and felt the same
had the same response
took the same corrective action.
This feels like winning something.
I don't know what
but it definitely smells like Victory.
And Conspiracy.
And it makes me happy.
Happier than I'd like to admit.
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 10:32 AM UTC
I live where a man rubbing
White shoe cream on his leather loafers has ulcers
From malnutrition and constant cassava.
Where a man’s sister loves his Fossil watch
And avocados, but gives
The whole fruit to her hate child.
The road is walked in the morning by
Rwandans, the jerry cans on their heads wetting their chests
With water from the spigot, half an hour away.
Nike shoes are unstitched, laces
Washed white daily and
The drinking water is gone by seven p.m.
I live where black people go thirsty keeping
Their sneakers white; throats dry each morning
While lacing their shoes.
Jun 10, 2010
Jun 10, 2010 at 1:03 PM UTC
Thirty three years we go back,
Of course I think of you when I hear it.
Thirty three years of listening, questioning, understanding...
Of course I think of you.
My mind isn't a spigot I can turn off
and forget the water that flowed through.
I think of you when I was proud to be your wife,
proud of your accomplishments.
What does she know of those?
She doesn't know you.
She doesn't know you.
She hasn't loved you through the rages and disappointments,
through the utter giddiness of new fatherhood,
through your father's death,
your mother's pain.
She didn't thrill with each promotion,
plan homes,
plant gardens,
hope for thunder,
dance in the rain,
live on bagels for lunch,
play badminton in the dark.
She hasn't dried your tears over a son's illness.
She didn't play bridge with friends
or know their son who died,
the tow -headed little boy who made us think of becoming parents.
What comfort can she give?
She doesn't know you.
She knows this creation you've become
in Hollywood jeans
and weekend hikes without attachments.
She knows your daughters as bait--what a great dad--
your sons as accomplishments;
your wife as an anchor
who held you down, held you back
when all along I thought I was your support.
She doesn't know you.
And neither do I.
Apr 19, 2013
Apr 19, 2013 at 11:09 PM UTC
Green garden, my lovely little garden
over run with weeds
Cracked dirt, no water to be found
broke the spigot
Neat rows, gouged between spiny thorns
sweating, back bent
Such a waste, to throw down this seed
poached by ants
Some day I'll till it all, lovely garden
never work again
Jul 14, 2012
Jul 14, 2012 at 9:44 PM UTC
We marvel at
the smell of the white clover.
It is a baked in smell right now,
the heat is oppressive, crushing
The smell of the clover, and this
cigarette are the only reason we’re
out here.
Smarter, healthier people are inside,
in the air-conditioning, nursing a beer or
a lemonade, watching whatever might be on
HBO.
Returning to our respective homes,
we rejoin their much more comfortable
ranks.
(I’m curious what’s on HBO anyway.)
When the need for nicotine rises again;
cigarette in hand, opening the door, seeing
the pavement has darkened with rain.
The smell of the clover has been muted,
replaced with the brassy, metallic breeze
that rises like steam from the hot driveway,
lingering under the nose like a warm childhood
sip from the spigot.
That steam has its own odor,
rich and febrile,
rising from the superheated
surfaces of our cars.
It smells like squirt-gun suicide,
a child’s drink from the barrel of
plastic ordinance.
(Do you remember doing that?
I do.)
How terrifying that must’ve been to parents;
to see their children, in swimwear or skivvies,
******* on the end of a gun.
Perhaps they gave it less of a thought
than I do now.
I’d wager they were inside,
in the air-conditioning, nursing a beer or
a lemonade, watching whatever might be on
HBO.
Out of the early summer heat.
***
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016
Jun 26, 2016
Jun 26, 2016 at 10:48 AM UTC
Hot water rushes
from spigot to head; All my
thoughts are washed away
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 11:19 AM UTC
this flourishing silence feels more of
a trite hack-job than it is a writing stint.
my fingers (frenzied, brazen) continue to tap
and my mind starts to spill like a spigot
left open. I have taken to smoking and laughing
away
in an obscured day for myself in the parking lot
and sometimes I can do without company; only the snarl
of the well-oiled tractor in front of me.
the days are full of yellow and the Sun is a dog
on a leash. the roses smell of brine and their slender
stems bones of the young.
I can see cheeks flushed with red and skirts
neatly trimmed just above knobby knees
and I know somewhere in that tender flesh,
a man sifts without knowing what it feels to eat
bone before flesh, flesh after bone. my silently augured
procurement of today’s induced comatose is but
a Freudian slip – the world with its burly physique
is a chauvinistic man
drinking whisky in the red light district of hazy Makati.
each slapdash word in penitent reprisal
is the moment’s clearest reprieve. I am glad that this room
is darker than the eyes of the love I have lost
staring back with a mound of the abysmal or the yearnings
of a chagrined mother startled back to her home;
it must be dreamy, the dogs outside pant in heat
and the obnoxious *** of vehicles outside bears the cadence
of two people starting to fall in love: all chaotic and unmoving,
fastened to the Earth, aware of the passing minutes,
wishing to be somewhere else but there.
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 1:34 AM UTC
the motionless air hung heavy
with late summer heat
at a distance a woman's voice in song
the rich sound reaching for your heart
with feelings of life lived joyous and bold
i walk the sunsoaked road
to the farm field to find her
where the dusty faces of the pickers greet with smiles
their great baskets filled with the newly picked crop
its thick scent filling the air with intoxicating fresh natural beauty
**** and tangy ripe to the souls tastebuds
they gather round the water spigot
laughing and speaking
a family of strangers
come to harvest the land
they invite me to join them
for the midday meal
so i sit in the shade of a truck
sipping the cool clear waters
eating the thick rich bread and cheese
such people of the earth
their hands worn with its labor
their hearts alive with its loves
such kind souls of the land
sharing their moment with me
the meal done
the baskets for the picking ready once more
they wander back to the field
and she begins to sing once again
as the sweet summer sun lulls me to slumber
her voice a beautiful tapestry woven with her
love of her people and her life
a rich tender sound
she carried me into sweet deep dreams
of the kindness of people who harvest
with their hands and hearts
the bounty's of the earth
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 12:26 PM UTC
1. The Ugly Coupling of the blue sousaphone suckling
Buffalo Buffalo
didn't know the blue mouth piece widget
was no inspired milk spigot
soaked with Mr. Creosote
in Vomit'n beer laden banana bins
weewoo weewoo the maniac is behind you
(its funny how when i'm feeling particularly uninspired my poems always come out like this....)
chuckling happily listening to singing nonsense
with headphones on
9 beats, repeated triplets, phrases
spoken in a mumbling rhythm
(....just jumbled references, slant rhymes and free associations)
dreams of peace in the middle east
as eyes turn upward to see a collard shirt and mohawk looking back
"my god what have you done"
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 11:24 AM UTC
*Sea of money, green wave it crashes...
...take it peon, take all your lashes!
Homeowners, taxpayers, nation, investor,
my hands on it all, everything; for I am molester!*
*Ideology, philosophy and ego,
entering your hearts, your minds; the Sea Goat!
All of it for my class, the world is our pile...
...now I choke off the spigot and wither you Gen-tile!*
Money subjugation, adorn it with laurels...
*Banker am I!
The man of no morals!*
Nov 8, 2016
Nov 8, 2016 at 8:24 PM UTC
You sit at your screen
fingertips flying in the face of decency
like a spigot attached to a vat of arsenic
dripping your poison, slowly, surely into the ears of the unthinking.
You justify the burnt skin, the orphans, the unending torture as deserved.
Deserved?
How can it be so?
Go tell the orphan, scarred and screaming that her fate was deserved.
Go stand beside mass graves and thumb your nose at the deserving corpses, stained by the blood of ages.
Where is your heart?
does it choke and sputter,
buried beneath your all encompassing loathing?
You call me stupid, maybe so,
my views naive, my compassion wasted
yet my heart beats proudly, swells with love
while my tired eyes drown at the unfolding horror.
War is not a spectator sport,
it is not justifiable, nor deserved.
Call me stupid if you will, ridiculous if you must
call me any number of names in your attack on my spirit
I will not care, I will not bend or bow.
Your hatred will be your undoing.
Not mine
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 4:19 AM UTC
It is difficult
To see things
From the perspective
Of human beings
When they seem
So far from me
A bunch of extras
For an action scene
Less than capable
Consumer fiends
Confusing me
With their
Cluelessness
All replaceable
Blood dolls
Dancing
For me
With me
It is a little hard
To see
Evenly
Behind
The shepherd
Above
The sheep
Sleepily
Eating
Your heys
For the day
It is tough to see
A knife out
When below
The spigot
In a drought
Drinking
The sorrow
Away
It is a bit of trouble
To see
When you
Have played
The persistent
Parasite
To a
Pedigree
That in fact
Agreed
To give
Pieces
Of their
Love
Away
Cannot
See
When
Face
Down
On a
Toilet
Seat
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 2:24 AM UTC
How to:
focus on letters falling
out of your mouth like
a leaky spigot when
you have orchard eyes &
honeysuckle lashes that I
am positive would feel
like the down of the most
expensive pillow if
brushed against my
fingertips, & lilac breath
that dances around your
dripping syllables so gracefully
& dissipates like the sweetest
fog around me so that
I cannot see past you;
but why, why
on Earth would I
ever look away?
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 9:10 PM UTC
You left me for your girlfriend today.
I feel filthy
as if I have gone back packing
and haven't bathed in two weeks, but
I know no spigot can clean this away.
I feel guilty
even though I didn't know
she was even someone in your life
worth knowing,
but even then I still knew
something.
I even resigned to apologies
because I'm sick of feeling
like it's me,
and you use poetry to calm me,
which seduces me even more.
"I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."
I want to poetry back at you
because the conversation
was just as good as the ***
and I want to scream,
because I've done it again,
home-wrecking at it's finest,
but I know where this story ends.
(I've read it one too many times.)
Jul 10, 2012
Jul 10, 2012 at 2:33 AM UTC
The spitting image
Was just in spitting distance
When she pricked herself in the spindle
And fell into spinet
Then ended up in the hospital on Guerrero street
The two dunderheads
Compared biceps
Engaged in a ******* contest
Their **** was red, forgot they had eaten beets
Now they're on their way to the hospital on Guerrero street
The embezzling imbecile
Who invented mystery meat
Was selling cowlicks at the concession stand
He had a heart attack when a horse voiced mulatto paid him in coins with no cash value
Now he's on a pram in the hospital on Guerrero street
The improviser had a bright idea
And epiphany
There was a light bulb above his head
But he was taken by the under tow and got water logged
Now he's held up in the hospital on Guerrero street
The beggar women ******* from a rusty spigot
Who studied the doctrine but didn't read the document or get the memo
That she was due for a mammogram, she was distressed
She could barely make ends meet
So now she brings he tin can of pennies with her to the hospital on Guerrero street
Amidst the unfortunate
Amongst the idiots
There is me, the one who got his hand stuck in peanut jar
Sitting in the waiting room damning myself in the hospital on Guerrero street
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 8:54 PM UTC
Wild grapes grow on vines
From the trees next to the Fields
A bunch of us harvested the yield
Purple fingered in buckets
A Galvanized Antique
Wash Tub on Wheels
With the Hose at the Bottom
Filled up with The Make
A log of Firewood was used
To smash the grapes to pulp
As the Juice Drained out
Collecting in a Bucket
Pounding the pulp up
Taking Turns, Arms Ached
In the Back Yard, Sun Baked
As we plied our Log to Make
In the Kitchen 20 Lbs of Sugar
And gallons of Water Boiled
Watched and Stirring Constantly
Till the Syrup Batch Roiled
A 50 Gallon Oak Wine Keg
Prepared a Wooden Peg
A Hole drilled through
Coiled copper Pipe put to...
An ancient wooden Spigot
Gently tapped into place
The warm Syrup is poured
Yeast Added and then Grape
The Plug with the copper Pipe
Tapped into the Top of the keg
Coiled up Copper Stretches Down
To water, in a Redwing Crock
Halloween party we
Tapped some pitchers
A Light and fruity Vin
Sweet Pallette of wine
Christmas we Tapped
Merry Pitchers to toast
A Fine Full bodied Note
It made a Merry toast
For New Years we
Tapped the Last
The Marc of Dregs
Potent as Sweet Sherry
The Winter Wine
Tasted Fine
With Merry Toasts
For a Good Time
Feb 23, 2015
Feb 23, 2015 at 4:43 PM UTC
for the part-time writers, who write in deeds untill indeed
the mundane Mondays till the fully fried Fridays,
the too short beginning weekends when
you celebrate your lottery winnings,
mega millions of
chores
wheeeeeee
these some,
poet poem poetry, latter-day saints
yet to be arrived-arresting,
good lord,
writing time -
a time slot that doesn’t
appear on your unscheduled
cellphone
calendar
so this what needs remembering, us,
these days are the
storage days
the professionals screen stare, self obligatory
demanding the page output,
the disciplined work ethic,
self torture this work,
that they would pay to do
these some
access accessible accessories in actual time
when
a time clock is punching them back,
time immediacy, a mistress,
needing a wife’s daily attention
the rest of us accumulators,
hoarder-recallers; off-site monthly
storage unit renters for old reusable furniture memories
until the dissembling assembly of the pieces,
with the arrival of the year of the hour of the day
is an urgency spilling
and the consumption urge
eats you alive from inside out,
your patience is rewarded
no screen slave you,
just a spigot turned twice
and over flowing winks bring/ring
the-no-longer-stowed stored eye pics,
poems for a someday
and the waiting was worth the waiting price
some people
us, juggle jiggly *****
tend to drop them all...
till we don’t...
May 27, 2018
May 27, 2018 at 12:03 PM UTC
I said let's do it in the shower.
She said baby, don't you know we're in a drought?
It slipped my mind, the television and the computer distracted me.
There's water coming out of the spigot and a beautiful friend is laying on my couch, I guess I forgot I wasn't dreaming.
High off hash joints and opiates,
I don't remember driving home.
My mother looked me in the eye.
Are you okay, she says.
I told her I was sick.
I looked at you in the morning and I was happy
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 3:47 PM UTC
I was able to fool myself there for a little bit
The fraudulent thought was constant
However, my penmanship captured a consistent internal beratement
But every new piece is the same 'ol shiit
It just pours out different
Duplicate content no matter the faucet
But it's only ever water coming outta the spigot
Forming from the origin of a recurring script
With only a singular way to interpret
You're only going to get one thing from an unchanging mindset
Just gets reworded before print
"Maybe they won't notice it"
"If I rearrange it it'll at least look different"
But the retreating interest is evident
Leading to the realization that was destined to hit
"They've found my secret"
"This pony only has one trick"
Should have paid closer attention to it
I lie and say it's wit,
Which I know is bull shiit
Because I couldn't and wouldn't argue if you called it redundant
The absolute of my failure is pungent
On my best day I'm still repugnant
Any new muse goes out of its way to be absent
Mostly due to the subject,
That's me,
Becoming complacent
Setting anchor in what was my escapement
Befriending my replacement
I wouldn't suggest it
But I ate it
So now I gotta ingest it
©2024
May 18, 2024
May 18, 2024 at 1:42 PM UTC
Your mouth
Like a spigot, turning
To drain me of discomfort
I scream
Brought to ecstasy
By your passionate love
Oh to lay
Nestled to sleep
By the calm of your touch
I dream
Of nothing more
Than embracing for eternity
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 8:40 PM UTC
~for mark john junior~
the spigot turns counterclockwise,
oft I wondered why,
is it the magic way to make
things rise...
'pon occasion, the water shuts off,
turn left to right or vice versa,
no juice no bath and life starts
to stink, especially under armpits
and you think
how many love poems does one soul
in his lifetime possess,
and can I do better than my last...
if at all
sometimes you stare at a blankenship
ocean adrift, pirate hijacking victim,
no grub, no paddle or map,
but an empty water bottle
baffled you ask it
to point north,
laughs at you, asking,
"am I a compass,
or you,
a complete ***
a seismic groan out loud,
registers on
Florida's hurricane wind watch
how come this to be
meteoric loss of metaphor bridging,
search the Internet for the ******
of poetic inspiration, and an
error message delivered:
"plagiarize, or better luck next time sucker"
patience, football, thy women,
will in time realize the artful truth realized:
"Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes; art is knowing which ones to keep"
Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert)
so
go forth,
make mistakes plenty,
keep some good,
the pink ones fyi, my fav,
look that quill in the face,
and give the lazy ******* some lip,
reminding it,
it gets paid and ink drinks,
by the word
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 1:35 PM UTC