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THE WASHERWOMAN is a member of the Salvation Army.
And over the tub of suds rubbing underwear clean
She sings that Jesus will wash her sins away
And the red wrongs she has done God and man
Shall be white as driven snow.
Rubbing underwear she sings of the Last Great Washday.
Terry O'Leary Jul 2015
As dawn unfolds today beyond my fractured windowpane,
a breeze beguiles the ashen drapes. Like snakes they slip aside,
revealing wanton worlds that race and run aground, insane,
immersed in scenes obscene that savants strive to mask and hide.

Outside, the twisted streets retreat. Last night they seemed so cruel.
While lamps illumed lithe demons dancing neath the gallows tree,
their lurking shadows shuddered as they breached the vestibule.
Within the gloom strange things abound, I sense and sometimes see.

Perdu in darkened doorways (those which soothe the ones who weep)
men hide their shame in crevices in search of cloaked relief.
The ladies of the evening leave, it’s soon their time to sleep!
The alleyways are silent now but taste of untold grief.

Distraught nomadic drifters (dregs who stray from street to street)
abandon bedtime benches, squat on curbs they call a home,
appeal to passing strangers for a coin or bite to eat.
Rebuffed, they gaze with icy eyes that chill the morning gloam.

Observe with me once more, beyond my fractured windowpane,
the broken boy with crooked smile, the one who's seen the beast.
With tears, he kneels and clasps the cross to exorcise the stain.
The abbey door along the lane enshrouds a pious priest.

At nearby mall, Mike needs a cig, and stealth'ly steals a pack.
The Man, observing, thinks ‘Hey Boy, this caper calls for blood’,
takes aim, then shoots the fated stripling six times in the back.
Come, mourn for Mike and brother Justice, facedown in the mud.

The shanty town has hunkered down engaged in mortal sports
while shattered bodies' broken bones at last repose supine,
and mama (now bereft of child) in anguished pain contorts,
her eyes drip drops of bitter wrath which wither on a vine.

Fatigued and bored, some kids harass the crowded alley now.
To pass the time, Joe smokes a joint and Lizzy snorts a line.
The NRA (which deals with doom) can sometimes help somehow,
though Eric died with Dylan in ‘The Curse of Columbine’.

Marauders scam the marketplace (with billions guaranteed)  
while babes with bloated bellies beg with barren sunken eyes,
and (cut to naught) the down-and-out (like trodden beet roots) bleed.
Life's carousel confronts us all, though few can ring the prize.

Yes, Mr Madoff, private bankster (cruising down the road,
with other Ponzi pushers, waving magic mushroom wands),
adores addiction to the bailout (coffers overflowed),
and jests with all the junkies, while they’re bilking us with bonds.

A timeworn washerwoman totters, stumbling from a tram -
she shuffles to her hovel on a dismal distant hill,
despondent, shuts the shutters, prays then downs her final dram -
a raven quickly picks at crumbs forsaken on her sill.

Jihadist and Crusader warders faithfully guard the gates,
behead impious infidels, else burn them at the stake
(yes, God adores the faithful side, the heathen sides He hates),
with saintly satisfaction reaped begetting pagan ache.

All day the watchers skulk around our fractured windowpanes
inspecting all our secret thoughts, our realms of privacy,
controlling every point of view opinion entertains,
forbidding thoughts one mustn't think, with which they don’t agree.

Our rulers (kings and other things) have often made demands
of populations breathing air on near or distant shores
and when they didn’t yield and kneel, we conquered all their lands
with sticks and stones, then bullets, bombs and battleships in wars.

Come, cast just once a furtive glance… there's something in the far…
from towns to dunes in deserts dry, the welkin belches death
by dint of soulless drones that stalk beneath a straying star
erasing life in random ways with freedom’s dying breath.

But closer lies an island, where the keepers grill their wards.
Impartial trials? A travesty, indeed quite Kafkaesque.
The guiltless gush confessions, born and bred on waterboards.
No sense, no charges nor defense. A verdict? Yes, grotesque!

Now dusk is drawing near outside my fractured windowpane
while mankind wanes like burnt-out suns in fading lurid light;
and scarlet clots of grim deceit and ebon beads of bane
flow, deified, within a corpse, the fruit of human blight.
Soap froth sprays in the air
Up down up down it goes
Rhythmic swings don’t care
If the detergent smells of rose!

She has to cleanse all dirt
Rub off the dourest stain
In it she puts her heart
Thereby forgets own pain!

Rises the lever up far
Swoops down fast with a thud
Rainbow bubbles scatter around her
She knew not when staled a rosebud!

In the tub water her ocean
She squeezes the wetness dry
She knows only this motion
Got no time to look at the sky!

Now in the sun she must spread
Fabric of brightness on sight
Her own life’s long lost thread
Is buried in the hush of night!

Does she remember the broken oaths
Her life never nurtured in sun
Worn out as all her washed clothes
Faded like all the years gone!
One day He
tipped His top hat
and walked
out of the room,
ending the argument.
He stomped off
saying:
I don't give guarantees.
I was left
quite alone
using up the darkness
I rolled up
my sweater,
up in a ball,
and took it
to bed with me,
a kind of stand-in
for God,
that washerwoman
who walks out
when you're clean
but not ironed.
When I woke up
the sweater
had turned to
bricks of gold.
I'd won the world
but like a
forsaken explorer,
I'd lost
my map.
Ben Jones Feb 2013
Lord Henry Dickenbottem
Lived among his peers
A mind of deepest arrogance
Concealed between his ears
He spent his nights in gross misconduct
Lounging in his secret quarters
Mistress, maid and washerwoman
Ousted mothers, secret daughters
Hiding sordid love affairs
His endless line of ******* heirs
***** Henry Dickenbottem
Stalked above the stairs

Lady Mary Dickenbottem
Did her wifely duty
The slenderest of all her kin
Considered quite the beauty
Though in the dusk the candle burned
Alone, she stitched a pallid face
And in the dark she sought its words
To gain her shallow masters grace
Guiding will and fooling eyes
Beseeching of the dead to rise
Demon Mary Dickenbottem
She the pure despise

Master Neville Dickenbottem
Best of all his class
Beaten all the school boys
And bedded every lass
Allies of the strongest kind
And making merry of the weak
The liberties were his to take
And never one he wouldn’t seek
His gaze surveyed that which he ruled
All logical and water cooled
Nasty Neville Dickenbottem
Devil-fire fuelled

Young Jemmima Dickenbottem
Innocent and slight
Playing on the borderline
And darting out of sight
Only ever at her ease
When no one else was close about
And etched upon her baby face
The guilty shadow of a doubt
Always blamed if something broke
And speaking just above a croak
Shy Jemmima Dickenbottem
Tangible as smoke

Old Mother Dickenbottem
Lounging in her chair
Lavender and nicotine
Are fighting for her hair
Beware, at night she ventures forth
So best keep safe your tiny tots
She’ll creep up to the windowpane
And ****** them, sleeping, from their cots
Humming in discordant tones
Nimble fingers, cold as stones
Hungry Mother Dickenbottem
Gnawing on the bones

Dear Major Dickenbottem
Five years in the ground
Hoarded every ha’penny
But frittered every pound
Long he served his king and queen
A gentlemanly thing to do
He left the port with many men
And brought back homeward very few
He died away in foreign lands
Of syphilis and swollen glands
Dead Major Dickenbottem
Killed by wandering hands
irinia Jun 2014
Old courtyards with tubs of laundry:
‘Go to the washerwoman and do your own washing’
I whisper to you, and the wild apricot trees
all turn suddenly white, the sky pales,
the world is ****** in a drenching buzz.
There΄s a smell of bluebags and a sulphurous bubbling.
You΄d hardly believe it — so much steam rises
that only dirt is left in the copper.
The wild apricots petrify into coral.
It΄s so easy — easy in a woman΄s way —
to wash your soul, to rejoice in the spring wind
shaking the scales on its dragon-tail
so that you΄re looking at soap-bubbles
it blows for you between your fingers.
Two children pass by, holding on a string
a balloon transparent as a bubble.
For a moment we are crouched inside it.

Grete Tartler

[Translated into English by Fleur Adcock]

New Europe Writers Bucharest Tales, Contemporary Literature Press, Bucharest, 2014
Grete Tartler (b. 1948, Romania) has published 12 volumes of poetry in Romanian and German, and literature for children. She lives in Bucharest.

I dedicate this post to someone dear.
shyspy Aug 2019
The fly lit on a propellor of
a washerwoman whirligig
watched by a whisky sour wino
wearing a scratchy candied wig
he wondered about a wing-ding
under the comeuppance of rain
we struggle that way
you and I...
like ants burdened with twigs
close the door behind you
walk back in
.
David R Mar 2021
visions of G-d
like kaleidoscope changing
the shutter opens
through glass-staining
for second, a glimpse
understanding gained,
a feeling, a sense,
uncurtained,
new grasp,
a gasp,
senses aghast,
then all darkens,
leaving a memory,
till it, too, fades,
like grey emery,
innocence of maids,
in cellar-scullery,
a washerwoman's apron,
But it will awaken,
healing the forsaken
humanity united
man undivided
in leaving satan
embracing Eden
as all hearts heal
as all souls kneel
afore recognition
of Divine emission
BLT's Merriam-Webster Word of The Day Challenge
#aghast
Dr Peter Lim Jun 2018
The day is sweating work
the night is restless worry
mortgage is oppressive
the kids are hungry-

taken on a second job
though the pay is paltry
borrow from loan-sharks
they charge 50% interest annually--

my wife is a washerwoman
from a very poor family
she labours without complaint
she's My Fair Lady-

when I'm sad and lonely
I learn to write poetry
my friends say I write badly
and I reply: But it makes me happy!

— The End —