those long stainless spoons
bring back memories
the noise of the chefs bringing long trays
of food we would soon be dipping into
as trays would make their way along the line
gathering the daily meal the kitchen had prepared
the last duty was the exit dispensing
the bagged lunches we had already prepared
as they made their way back into the streets
the camaraderie in the kitchen
was a daily blessing
sometimes one could hear old gospel songs
or perhaps a newer popular tune
it was a shared joy
the art of bagging baloney and cheese
the banter between volunteers and recipients
and the Thanksgiving meals of the Salvation Army
escorting them through the line, seating them
oh, I could tell you tales from the shower detail
soap, shampoo, new t-shirt, specialty products
the smiles, having removed the everyday wear of life
a chance to walk into a new life for a moment
my walk from the trolley among them gathering
waiting at the door, offers of drugs, street reality
when i must confront the cruelty of humanity
it is here i remember, the heart of Christianity
Oregon 8/3/26
sometimes coffee in an Antigua cup
or red,
not often, tea,
loose or bagged.
does the string stop the drowning.
occasionally, dandelion,
bitter, mildly unpleasant;
such as a visit
to the deck, tidied,
vacuumed, except for a corner
kept with leaves
waiting for a spouse
to hurry up and finish up.
a three-way
confusion, static;
like a bus-hop,
it’s no party, not even
an old-fashion
party line.
not likely to listen
to reason, cutting
remarks, saturated
in control.
chocolate cream, distilled sips
in a cordial glass,
stem pinched by thumb
and pointing out tact.
sometimes wine, red
in a heaping purple goblet,
only a quarter full;
I’m no fool.
falling into the coolness
of rain, insane
how things change, shift,
stay strangely the same,
and out of order.
hey, while I listened,
a lingering trash bag
disappeared.
this is why
complaining is
for nought.
perhaps tomorrow
will wake up sunny,
and exhausted,
rumpled and relaxed.
a three way cheer
of tact,
bittersweet parched.
Not the great compass winds, but the lesser,
the local winds, the mapmakers.
Odysseus once bagged them, but they escaped.
Anemoi, like the wind that de-horns goats,
or the Moorish, Melteme,
the ill-tempered one. Simoom, the poisoner
who fills throats with its tainted garments,
or Rashabbar the black wind
whose nocturnal wings blind all men.
Named, visible winds that chisel our faces,
as if we were cliffs at the edge of the world.
The Squamish, the Elephanta, the Williwaw,
time-swirling thieves. They steal the young,
the babes in their cribs and when we look for them,
a swish of a hem or a hurricane are the same.
The children return, a sculpted dervish
spiralling within them.
Tebbard, the fever wind, wanders through our bones,
a sultry doctor adding fuel to the heat
until a storm breaks, then as driftwood we are salvaged.
The Fever-bringer itself dies,
dry now as mottled kelp on carrion shores.
Winds that gnaw themselves into Chinooks and Mistral,
winds that shape and follow us
to the rim of the sky, where those celestial dragons,
North, East, South and West winds
dream fitfully of once being human.
kraken bagged his first clipper ship on a Monday afternoon.
I love the feel of it in the bag, he told his cousin Swoon.
Swoon thought that keeping a ship in a bag was bad luck.
He asked how the creatures would breathe, but
Kraken did not give a gut
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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?
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!
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