I couldn’t live without A/C
Though people all through history
Made do with fans or else before,
They sweated through the clothes they wore.
I’d hate to live without my phone;
Attached to it I’ve somehow grown
Though I’ve survived, let’s not forget,
When it was not invented yet.
I wouldn’t want to live without
The wheels that take me all about,
For without car or bus or train,
I’d feel so stuck I’d just complain.
I’m glad I never had to live
Without appliances that give
The means to keep us clean and fed,
Allowing us to get ahead.
I’m grateful that these things exist
Though we can’t know what we’ll have missed
By living in this current age
Before the future turns the page.
the abandoned shack looks miserable and forlorn
standing amid brambles and weeds in an unkempt field
her porch boards creak ominously as we walk across them
Some of the end boards have disintegrated
she looks sad and gloomy; her front door is gone
she has not been cared for in a number of years
the upstairs windows are broken probably by rocks
her kitchen has been stripped of appliances
wires hang where her oven used to be
the floor is brighter next to these wires
a tiny creature scuttles across the floor
She smells like animals
She has probably been a haven for squirrels and mice
Maybe raccoons take up residence during the winter
Do you want to go upstairs? My girlfriend asks
I shake my head “no” not wanting to see any more
Appliances today
replete with whistles and bells
The only problem is ~
they don’t work so well
There may have been neighborhoods
with green lawns, playgrounds, and ballfields
a short walk from houses with enough
bedrooms for everyone.
Houses that stood apart from one another,
so owners could park cars in garages
set towards the back and then walk on paved
walkway to back doors leading to kitchens
with modern appliances,
but I live with five others in a three-bedroom
six-room railroad room apartment fourth floor
walk-up in a six-story row tenement house
on a block with twelve other buildings,
exactly the same.
Built-in the late eighteen or early
nineteen hundreds.
Buildings riddled with cracked walls,
leaking ceilings, stuck windows,
overflowing toilets, mice, and roaches
that were there to stay, with garbage cans
'most missing covers' in alleyways
that rats owned after dark, leading, to.
Courtyards with ‘No Loitering’ signs posted,
where we played hopscotch, hit the stick,
marbles, red light green light one two three.
Where Valerie’s mom jumped into from
the roof to.
That summer’s day my mother said that
‘we were moving’.
Reliability is hard to come by, I hear a sigh
Product insurance is offered when you buy
Manufacturers do build obsolescence in
Sellers know you’ll be coming back again.
Product insurance is offered when you buy
The appliance is not meant to last forever,
Sellers know you’ll be coming back again
A dependency dealers are reluctant to sever.
The appliance is not meant to last forever
Malfunctioning when you need it most,
A dependency dealers are reluctant to sever
Their product is the very best, they boast.
Malfunctioning when you need it most
You are forced to buy a replacement,
Their product is the very best, they boast,
But, now it’s in a box in your basement!
You are forced to buy a replacement
With the same promises and guarantees
But, now it’s in a box in your basement,
Life is a vicious cycle of these certainties.
With the same promises and guarantees
Product insurance is offered when you buy,
Life is a vicious cycle of these certainties,
Reliability is hard to come by, I hear a sigh.
Written December 11, 2022
[Pantoum form, adapted]
His knowledge was his untapped wellspring,
After 93 years of learning anew;
He valued knowing something about everything,
From construction & farming, to baseball & screws.
Early in life, a dairy farm taught him,
To think on his feet, with vast common sense;
Learning math at the sawmill, he estimated lumber,
And rebuilt old motors, appliances & fences.
For years he delivered, automobile parts,
To Tar Heel cities & Outer Banks towns;
Till one day, Wayne County rewarded his smarts,
With leadership to run, their buildings and grounds.
A Lion's Club/Odd Fellow—active for decades,
Making differences in the lives of many;
A loyal church member, a Jack of all trades,
Directing great efforts, that helped countless plenty!
Later in life, he started Smith’s Crafts,
With Logs that told Weather--Cow Clocks that told time;
Wrote a book on a bell, he loved to autograph,
Reading local history aloud, literary passion sublime!
His legacy is people, warm and loving,
Celebrating them in visits near and far;
Shelton Eugene Smith, Sr. a one-of-a-kind,
Honored by many, remembered by all!
(In honor & Memory of one of the world’s most fascinating men)
He's protected by insurance on his house
his vehicles, a wide range of health concerns
permanent disability, large appliances
his business and all its applicable insurables
against floods, wars, tornadoes earthquakes
glacier-melt, cyclones, asteroids, meteors
avalanches, mudslides, volcanoes, air and
seat travel...
... But nothing on his own life
People say oldies are hoarders
They collect miscellaneous Throughout the years
Knowledge,experience and utensils
The whole family contributes to the collections
They are memorable
They are precious
Electrical appliances,dresses and shoes
Souvenirs,books and certificates
Piled up the space
They seem to be very rich
With a small gallery
We also fall into this category
But recently we send away all the litters
To the recycling centres and welfare centres
Helping others
Few men are poor
But unluckily riches on earth are
corrupted
By devils
Old man wind pulled back the ocean waters
and funneled them into his watering can;
sprinkled them across the state;
over-watering every garden in sight.
A flood, six inches of water invaded my basement;
a three inch wading hole in the street and
a fortune in appliances and furniture was lost.
Afterwards he painted a rainbow in a cloudy sky and
started over again.
His tantrum lasted for two weeks.
Buttocks push; breasts boast
through non-existent crowds.
A choreographed squall
above the whir and clunk
of loaded appliances.
Hispanic girls acting out
in a Laundromat.
Hips gesture, hands stab
and tussle with unwashed issues.
I’m distracted by the overheated hum,
can’t read the print
of my paperback. Words run
naked over yellow pages
The girls are angry
but not with each other.
Skimpy shorts and gang-inks.
The porous waft of feral hormones
seethes over some slight,
branded onto a Facebook page.
They flop onto the slatted bench
produce a smart phone,
scroll through pictures,
moue and glower softening
as baby shots are thumbed.
Melting smiles, then
they hold up the cell for me to see.
we coo and smile together.
The they return to their world
and I to mine.
When they get up
the backs of their thighs
are marked by the wooden seat.
Washing spins on.
Sometimes we pay double extra
During inflation
Price rise in cooking oil
It has been a long time
We're eating waste oil
Increment in electric bills
Already suffering from
An extreme hot day
Price rise in cars
MCO lingers
We're unable to change cars
Price rise in household electrical appliances
Have to buy an expensive
All-purpose cooker
Price rise in worshipping supplies
Have to ask for God's forgiveness
Rise in bus fare
Pity the children
Free education but burdened transport fare
Price rise in chicken eggs
Have to use less tasty duck's eggs
Price rise in farm fresh drinks
All along no confidence
Price rise in beers
Not all the people's favourite
Price rise in sugar
Saccharin is already widely used
Price rise in bread and mee
Have to change to
Less tasty rice buns and meehoon
Besides inflation and tax increase
We do pay double extra
For people's carelessness
Ignorance
And greeds
All finally will result in
An eternal suffering
only things grown in the ground remain
but mismatched without the hand of man
see that they dodge beautiful
their languishing longitudinal vegetable bodies
never suffer fracture the stems with fruits
and their armor and weapons, bark and branches
trees
no, I didn't think our past was decent
humans
if you ask me about those days of debauchery
we were building ourselves up like the men we now are
with wars and ironworks asps vertices vortices cusps
and it was discovered that it is easy to be reborn another
improvement is advisable
there is only one exit after a wall called brain
then the field we learned to cultivate
now this is what we are having mastered cultivation
homunculi like scattered tares sprouting without end
the power of some being the downfall of others
history built with annihilations
and then the progress
the home appliances
microwave TV freezer wire and electricity
then bytes and bits
now nanoeverything
tomorrow AI and nothing more.
I handle household appliances with suspicion
adjust the temperature and error
As I complain the clouds have stopped raining
I go out to live
here in the basic world
I head neurotic to where I don't know
It's been hundreds of years I do it like this
I uncontrol the real images
and submerge in me
contour obstacles posts people
difficult to coordinate so many organs that pulsate
the brain as it knows how to send more blood
for the leg that I must now lift?
there on the corner the spaceship descends
I'm going to board
from above the view is still ugly
amorphous dead city I will never return
I beg you, hurry up, let's get out of here
tomorrow maybe in a new home
maybe i give up giving up
Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch
after Richard Thomas Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”
O, terrible-immaculate
ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat,
where cleanliness is next to Art
—a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart),
a Persian rug (made in Taiwan),
a Royal Bonn Clock (time zone Guam)—
embrace my ass in cushioned vinyl,
erase all marks: ****, v-g-nal,
penile, inkspot, red wine, dirt.
O, sterilize her skirt, my shirt,
my skidmarked briefs, her padded bra;
suds-away in your white maw
all filth, the day’s accumulation.
Make us pure by INUNDATION.
Published by The Oldie, where it was the winner of a poetry contest. Keywords/Tags: hymn, art, America, laundry, laundromat, washer, dryer, appliances, clean, cleaning, cleanliness, clothes, clothing, underwear, god, godly, godliness, water, baptism, inundation, sonnet, analogy
This poem was inspired by the incongruence of discovering "works of art" while doing laundry at a laundromat with coin-operated washers and dryers. I was reminded of the experience while reading Richard Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer.”
O, the nights we couldn't stop sweating
the porch no cooler than our rooms
Enervated, we drove down to the lake
where 'shore patrol' lowered the boom
All those appliances that too often failed
jalopies that wouldn't start in the cold
Lights flickering with each drop of rain
all those folks who at 50 were old
Yet this is not what we choose to remember
'coz memory, thank God, is selective
If not, who would ever reminisce
over things as they were ~ so defective
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