Bagged Poems

Clean

I fixed the vacuum. 
I need to throw the dirt away. 
I did it. 
I tried not to be careless. 

Cleaning with a vacuum. 
When nothing is enough. 
We give into the loud sounds. 
Loud, cleaning sounds. 

Throw. It. Away.
It’s not that hard. 
Because it’s all bagged up, just for me. 
The dust mites tell me to. 

I woke up at night. 
I’m still living here. 
Everything is clean.
I promised myself.

Destroying. Sad. Muddy.
I wish spring cleaning was light and nice. 
With feather dusters. 
And whistling innocently. 

I need to destroy. 
These thoughts.
Throw the bag in the fireplace. 
There is nothing better on a spring morning. 

Along with hair, and stray pieces of string. 
There were other things. 
He left behind. 
His filthy footprints. 

I won’t remember him. 
He took the pictures with him. 
I took out the vacuum. 
Every night, I clean. 

Filth, dirt, mud, grime. 
There is nothing left.
Muddy footprints in my mind.
I howled, but the vacuum was louder. 

Spring cleaning, da da da.
Cleaning makes things empty. 
He took all the pictures with him. 
But my vacuum is louder.

Autumn Here

Sun set a little quicker this eve
A crimson fire that blinked my eye
And wind held me and kissed goodbye
Autumn seems like a stranger now
It was much softer as a child
The whisper of a mothers call
Floated down alleys and gulleys
And met with a collective sigh
But now as the autumn of my life
Invades like a September dawn
It brings a reflective pause
As the could have's and should haves
Litter like confetti leaves around my root
But I notice more, I listen more
To the sights and sounds
That passed by in a previous child
Now bagged up with a seasoned string
For winter grips tightly to the unprepared

© Andrew Mears 2025

At Home for Christmas

At Home for Christmas

Fake pine, unfolding bagged branches,
           expressive string of lights attached.
All ornaments unwrapped, three spaced
             mid-tree, Ricky & Lucy - foremost.
Resound of the season - reason
      the celebrants take time for fair Christ.

The Tooth Fairy lost Her Teeth

I heard the tooth fairy lost her teeth.
Thief stole every last one, and her wand.
She can’t wave away the loss. Senseless,
of course. Sore kids won’t let it go -
their tooth. They’ve moved to Neverland
to escape the crooked, but Cook has
a secret treasure with a wand for a key.

Now Peter found the old Captain’s stash,
bagged it, filled it with crocks and clocks.

Peter Pan capped the tooth fairy’s smile.
The Captain will be screaming for a while.

Art As Activism I

One of the great things about being an artist is that even if I can’t change the world I still have an unfettered opportunity to express my opinions. To keep from exploding, I made these pieces instead—Alice Deasley

Art As Activism I

It begins at home or should I say at the grocery store,
anywhere food is sold
Changes in ways to shelve groceries 
should again be addressed, it’s still an issue
Packaging goes straight into the sea—the true trash can
Alternatives are store chains that use barrels for sweets, nuts,
dried fruit and edible seeds 
More deli section, less packaged meats and cheese
Bakery containers, less packaged muffins
Plastic pollution solutions everywhere
Beach cleanups, volunteer to pick up litter
Our actions impact the ocean 
even far away from the coast
land and water are connected
Buy plastic free, figure it out!
Less bagged chips, more glass bottled water and jars
Youth with passion will themselves create new ideas, 
for they are the inheritors.

Not the Lionel Rich Tea biscuit version

I can see it in your.eyes
As they rest in silver spoons
I can see it in your smile
As the lamp where your face skin lies tautly stretched filters through the lips
Are you somewhere feeling lonely 
Nope cause the chainsaw drips with pieces I made of you and there bagged and leaning against the wall
Or is someone there with you
It’s okay I will be sending more your way
Hello 
Not me you should be looking for

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

Crystal waters plumping the honeydews 
and cascading through amusement park ride.
As tourists engage in espionage
in Duckburg at Knottsbury farms.
As graves of self sufficiency,
Communes of bagged embalm.
"Do What Thou Wilt","Do No Harm".
Spirit cooking, charms I"m sure.
Missing and exploited children bearing no arms.
Foreigners get precedence over
the Citizenry collage for the sake 
of stirring the melting plot.

The coffers brim 
and Scrooge McF swims past inflation,
reaps the rewards of child labor
at camp Whinnie the Pooh with pedophiles and containment lasers,
adds a zero and then again, while CBDC 
cabalist coup hides the genesis 
of their new technology, 
obfuscates the code in block-chain, 
snart contract chaser-
in lock-step
and unlocked surveillance,
laser focused,
poker face,
tazered for inconclusive shadow, ban.

As we sell our Sons and Daughters 
to a not so brave New World.
Sold at half price for reverse mortgage 
and a haptic iPhone holographic massage.
OnlyFans and Tic Tok trends.
Where does it end?
Where the SoyLent is green.
Where the Red Firm Grows.

Sidewalk Chemist

I test the gum
And the scum
That came from
So many feet
Scrape the blood
And the crud
Between mud
Smooshed on concrete

I sample spit
Ample birds***
All with a flick
Of the wrist
Coz I’m your local
Wearing bifocal
Antisocial
Sidewalk chemist

I run a lab
And own a lab
Called Ahab
And when we walk
I grab a glut
Of cigarette butts
Ahab sniffs mutts
We rarely talk

I test the muck
Assay green yuck
Prod black guck
With tender care
Then it’s all tagged
Labeled and bagged
But I can’t drag
It to a fair

Data is sorted
Then transported
Where it’s reported
By sidewalk chemist
But the town hall
Says I have some gall
With my folderol
And I’m promptly dismissed

I’ve paid my dues
Been on the news
With great reviews
Now for an encore
I’ve been promoted
To test the foetid
And sweaty coated
Men’s locker room floor

Stuffed

Stuffed heads on imposing walls
beady glass eyes, glare.
The house is stuffed with horns,
tusks, fangs, and jowls.
Many a taxidermic glower,
gazes down,
with a moth-farmed visage.

Slaughtered beast
hang heavily from high mounts.
Teddy Roosevelt’s elephant gun
leans against a hollow elephant foot.
On gaslit nights
light gleams upon eyeless tigers.

He ‘bagged’ them all - a manly trait,
(historical context is everything),
truly, great men often display,
their overstuffed ego’s.

Later, Teddy Bears make amends,
as best they can.
Often, It is said,
that these wood-paneled veneers’
echo yet, with the lion's roar,
the panthers rage,
and the rhino's blind charge –

their spirits lunging once more,
toward their now, out-of-date
fate.

To Journalists Compromising

Walking here and there,
Scrounging for messages of Care,
Journalists of the day.
Standing by at door or gate
Spirited, to interrogate the great.

A long-serving microphone,
Miking words from those interviewed,
And an esteemed bagged camcorder on the shoulder;
Always await eventual days
So they’d pace with grace

But, their presentations tremble under status’ feet
Whereto their integrity doth greet.
Their job hence counts slackness of Justice:
That if they are to question a poor fellow,
They’ll do it diligently till he’s zero
But if they are to question a rich man,
Minister or president in particular,
The ‘eye-box’ is covered with red cloth,
Their journals closed, 
And their inkers halt;
They’ll compromise till he’s out of any cases.

Sorry
They are!
Turning a blind eye to the rich’s injustices
And giving a bright eye to the poor’s…
Yellow Journalism eke in Africa?

Cowboys and Indians 2023

The cowboys always won
    The Indians always lost
       I yearned to see a cowboy
       with an arrow through his chest

    But then I read a story 'bout
    a cowboy who'd been scalped
       Promised to myself, I said
       Now I'd see a red man dead

    Put on two toy store holsters
    Courage blazing from their guns
       Bagged me the bony remnants
       Of a graveyard skeleton



         Blood-curdling Scene ~
           Happy Halloween!

I'M

I'm a disease uncurable
I've seen the unseable
I've outlived the livable


I've danced with a crippled
I'm the unfortunate events
I'm the prosecutor of the prosecutes

I've lived through hell
I danced with sin
I pronce my words
a little thin

I'm only human 
with enough bagged
with a bottle of jin.

Hunting Season Is Permanently Closed

I WAS ABUSED BY MY MOTHER AND HER BOYFRIEND AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN, THIS POEM REFLECTS THOSE HARDEST MOMENTS FOR ME. THEY RAN OFF TO ALASKA WITH FIVE OF MY SIBLINGS WHEN I TOLD MY GRANDMOTHER WHAT THEY HAD DONE.


She never had a tender ear,
she let me know she didn't care.

Always mean she pulled my hair,
no other mother could compare.

I once remember, but only once,
she held my hand with tender love.

I must have been all of nine,
the only good memory in my mind.

The man who crept into her life,
whom she protected with all her might.

A young doe was what he wanted,
like a deer I was hunted.

When he bagged what he'd sought,
out west is where he took the lot.

The coward ran from prosecution,
Alaska administered his absolution.

My mother never penalized,
the man who caused my spirit to die.

I forgave her for their horrific sins,
I wasn't going to let them win.

Today I finally realized,
I'm the one who won first prize.

Prison of Flesh

Prison Of Flesh

Pregnant and constipated
Gagged
Asphyxiated
Want to jump out of my skin
Nonplussed and exasperated
Black bagged
Unenumerated
Everything is without
And I am locked within

Weekend Memory

Late 1940s England

the square
   was packed
& the high street full
meat&veg seemed plentiful

market barkers
  drew the queues
with jokes
         impromptu

shoppers filed
     neat& formal
in sainsburys greggs
  & home colonial

the bacon slicer
  shuttled back& forth
rashers scaled
 in halves&fourths

bread mealed smooth&strong
   butter patted shaped oblong
cheese cut with twangy wire
 toasted later on an open fire

ham sliced from the bone
 spuds bagged    weighed in stones
tea from open square tins
 packet-served with a welcome grin

'woollies' snackbar smells
  'elevenses'  hunger time to quell
one mug of ovaltine must'nt dally
so shortcut thru' market alley

where auctioneers tones rise&fall
 above the sheep&cattle stalls
  then off homewards at a trot
 last pennies spent in feaseys   sweetshop

on the train bridge 'spotted' numbers new
waited    whilst the 'cutler' raced thru'
 along pebble brook   time to climb a tree
    on this day  shopping was made coupon-free

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