Best Bathwater Poems
From a mouthful of this morning’s eggs,
I pull bits of char from yesterday’s breakfast.
‘I had no chance to scrub the pan’, I plea with myself-
But I still smash it over my skull
like a cartoon.
Every morning I wake up
feeling last night’s feelings,
thinking last night’s thoughts,
about what’s happening 10 years ago,
and what happened tomorrow.
If you add up every
simultaneous
suffocating
moment
I fight through-
just to say:
‘i love you’
It would stretch for longer than I’ve known you,
which is longer than I’ve been alive.
There was no ‘today’ in my broken egg.
No difference between coming or going,
to an automaton in purgatory
who saw life through the pinhole eyes
of a cardboard mask won at a birthday party
I never asked for.
The sky looked like the ceiling of a small, dark closet.
and flowers looked like plastic bargain bin decor
coated in lead paint, the kind left on roadside graves.
I used to count those as a child,
on the way to destinations
I still dread my arrival to.
If I were brave enough to show you my awe and my terror
of loving the one who revealed
the world as something real, all this time-
I would sink face down in dirty bathwater
choking on wet, laughing sobs
until my fingerprints wrinkled away
and tear at my clammy skin
until my soft nails bent backward
and paint red bruises all over my trembling body
that would spell out a primitive language
neither of us had the chance to learn.
This is my best guess:
‘i am just a bad thing that happened
a book of false memories and blind feelings.
You are a very fast reader,
You’ll soon reach the end of me.’
I remember drawing a map in crayon
of every ditch I saw myself lying in
strange, unnatural positions.
Like I'd been struck by a car,
and someone shoved my body away
so I wouldn’t mess up the next one.
~ I am a Conservative
Here is who I am
and what I stand for ~
C onserving what is worth preserving
O pen to changing what's not working
N ot willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater
S teadfast when those around me are scurrying
E nabling my children and relatives to succeed
R eligious in the ecumenical sense of the word
V itally interested in my community's welfare
A larmed by the rise in incivility in public discourse
T ender-hearted and giving to the stranger, the widow, the orphan
I nterested in politics, but not obsessed with it
V oracious reader of classical fiction and non-fiction
E nduring privation graciously, with faith and trust in God
Bathwater and bubbles are waiting,
but my child is nowhere near.
Yet, I can see from cookie crumbs,
he's crawled from here to there.
Oh, yes! he's been in the kitchen.
I see his crooked crumb trail,
which leads to our white kitten,
with a chocolate, sticky tail!
In every room I search
for my little chocolate mess.
Then, I find him in the my bedroom,
with his hands on my new dress!
Beaten
Smashed
Kicked
And splashed
Out into the street
Like dirty bathwater
Nothing more than a filthy puddle
Rising over the curb
Flooding the sidewalk cracks
Eager for evaporation
Every hair
Is On end
Every pore
At attention
Yearning skin
Is stretching for a touch
That never existed
Pulled
Like the blankets
Of children
Over worried heads
Attempting
Their Satisfying seclusion
For when there is no direction
Passion is formless
And love loses shape
Buried beneath blood-shot baby doll eyes
where drowns dark truths dwelling empty despair,
finds five fraught faces from false idol lies
clinging cold-coffins caused by cruel affair;
Saddled by sorrow seen in mother’s stare,
washed while awaiting where water is filled
pouring in porcelain planned to be killed;
Languishing lost lacking warmth much less love,
ended in eerily foul episodes,
angrier now than Almighty above
mumbling murmurs in murderous modes;
Ripe for wrongs reversed through revengeful roads,
tantalized terrors too tempted to taste
blood brought by bathwater boiling in baste;
Chastised and chided, these children chilling
journey for justice with jealous intent,
mystically moving, maddened minds milling,
howling horrific while haunting content;
For sins suffered by souls salvation bent,
never they rest now, now nestled in night,
purposed, their plight, seeks parents punished right;
Aiming as arrows at any ones found,
dripping disgust at desolate devils,
grumble gigantic than gnash to the ground
lustfully lashing in lunatic levels;
As rancid bells heard, rusted rung rebels,
thoroughly thrashing throats within their reach,
fifty fingers, if figured, ten for each.
And why wouldn’t what withered weary do,
dragged desperate to death by der’lict brain,
taught terrible things when tongues tied untrue
incited mother inside turned insane?
Silence should swallow who speaks sour on slain,
judgments be gentle, gestate not Hell’s gates,
for these are the children of Andrea Yates.
9/16/2016
Submitted For: Scare Me Good Poetry Contest
As she envisions boarding the plane,
she whoops a big hooray,
but then she's quickly back to earth,
realizing all the bills to pay…
Her dream vacation is to one day
see the sights and sounds of London,
but for now she'll have to settle
for some bathwater filled with Calgon!
One
What good is it, to complicate flesh and bone you've yet to know?
To paint portrait a brain only seeing the mask-y Face,
It is a canvas that is sure to lie.
What use is it, to flee a golden palace for a teeming forest?
When you keep a garden, pregnant with bosoms
And blooming fruits, wet juice down your chin,
Why be curious for soil that may only beget soil?
Siddhartha and I find ourselves akin. Such possibility!
We starve. Him on Bread, I on words.
Two
I find myself encase in gasping silver, floating on some Orinoco,
Holes poked to host the dry elbows, the crooked knees.
It is a peculiar box, and three sizes too small.
It is a sponge sighed shut to a scallop.
Do you know how it feels to breathe Ocean?
No. You've only once choked on your bathwater,
And birthed a conniption.
I breathe it every day. The lungs were only made for air.
But it is not my place to curse God's hands; it is to swallow you whole.
Would you be satisfied, Jonah, o Geppetto?
You would feel just how tight the casket is,
Rather than the sip of your sugared Lemonade.
Time to take a bath
When the flies buzz around you
(and they are wearing masks!)
And the room deodorizer leaves the room
It's time to take a bath
Believe me, it's not too soon!
When the bathwater turns inky
And people say you're stinky
Time to take a bath
When roaches start spraying you
White bathtowel a dark dark hue
It's time to take a bath!
When your visitors come, wearing surgical masks
Won't drink your drinks
Use only their own flask
And a bullet to the head
Is all you ask
And your primary doctor is Joseph Mengele'
Your only pet, a biting flea
It's time to take a bath
You've sunk so low, so very low
Your whereabouts, even you don't know
When the water jumps out of your tub
And your belly button is home for a grub
Maybe much more is needed
Just a bath may not do the trick
When no matter what you try
You make all others sick
Better start by sitting down with
a chisel or paint scraper
You've got so much work ahead, my friend
Your mind will turn to vapor!
ps- to those who commented on celestial traveler,
I'm glad to report I reworked the end...thanks for your constructive criticism.
regards, tom
Hey kid, whatcha doing here
Has it already been a year
Father time is all grown up
2017 I wish you luck
Years gone by to tell the truth
Have been more than a bit rough on you
It's time to pass off the baton
To the new kid on the block
This new kid to come along
We hope to fatten him all up
With the best of everything
All the goodies life can bring
We'll treat this year like no other
Save the baby and bathwater
Keep him around until he's old
Polishing the silver, shining the gold
As every year we hold out hope
That this one's not all that she wrote
Oh and if you don't mind,
One more thing
Will you get the phone...
I think I hear the New Year ring
Gratitude attitude grow
Peacock attitude away throw
Though temptations line up in a row
Pointless, heartless any soul you to hurt
Under no circumstances invective blurt
Because so doing grows you curt
Achieving trinkets, reaping limpets
As you blow trivial trumpets
Deriding, riding, restless strumpets
In your city where contempt
Fashionable in an objectional attempt
To parade low grade hair unkempt
For aeons under neon lights
Illuminating prudish, brutish fights
Meant to ignore the snore of plights
Street kids endure under the watch
You observe at close quarters to catch
Miscreants and recidivists who latch
Onto corruption
To catalyze the eruption
So blatantly witnessed in the disruption
Probity suffers as wafers
Vanish into thin air when quaffers
Poke fun at a senile souse who suffers
Ravages of loneliness
You regret in the context of silliness
Egrets and open secrets endure as holiness
Suffers its biggest reverse
To learn men of the collar deemed so averse
To child molestation in vows so diverse
Embarrass your church
Leaving doubting Thomases in the lurch
As for meaning and direction they search
Wondering if hypocrisy in this crisis
Should call and recall paralysis
To promote or demote dialysis
As a cure for the malaise
Believers suffer in the craze
That undermines set standards in a maze
In which a plethora of anguish
You bear as you strive to distinguish
Reality from fiction. Your faith don’t extinguish
Or else you throw baby together with bath water
In the church and in your quarter
To deny you opportunities for malfeasance to alter.
I cannot love you.
At least, not anymore.
If even there was ever love left in the cacophony
Behind my burning eyelids,
The osseous cavity that I emptied
Out like bathwater into the sea.
I am not who I was.
I am not okay with what I have become.
I drug along every mistake I made,
Salted the wounds,
And buried myself in them for days.
I cannot walk away.
I cannot love you because I am not sure
I will be here for you in the days to come.
I am not sure I deserve the body I bruised—
The rib cage pried open so I could reach my arms through.
Certainly I do not deserve you.
The scars I forged will mean something again some day,
But they are not for you;
They are mine alone to answer to.
They cleanse me like antiseptic through a metal sieve;
If I don't make it back,
Then I don't get to live.
I like fixing broken things.
I detest breaking things to fix them.
I cannot deny that I sit where you sit.
You see things broken and needing to be fix.
I see things well built and needing to be adjusted.
From where I sit;
From my perspective;
From where I hear and see;
From what I feel and sense;
From my heart, I believe it's true;
There are a lot of things broken.
Broken promises; broken hearts.
Broken people, communities, and nations.
But there are also things that are not broken.
For things broken, it's natural to try and fix them.
But things that are not broken should be left alone.
There seem to be a mad rush to fix, to redo America.
America has problems, lots of them, but she is not broken.
Yes, I see Cracks in our pillars of strength.
Yes, I see Leaks in our walls of defense.
Yes, I see Tears in the fabric of our society.
But I see a Foundation holding solid and strong.
Some Ingredients may have been left out of the menu,
but that calls for an addition to make it better, not a fixing.
Remember, we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
May we remain seated together to fix only what is truly broken.
090821PS
In dreams I see them:
Men and women, in Renaissance attire,
Moving about in silence in some fabulous cathedral
Full of silent Coptics and other sombre monks,
Their faces, all but one of them,
Obscured to uniformity by cloth
Silent themselves, they move about with aimless grace
Within the vast chamber that echoes my every footfall,
Drifting in trance like leaves carried past on invisible waters,
Performing miracles casually, as though to do so
Were as natural as breathing.
I watch them pass, bringing forth their miracles
Like magicians cause cards to appear in their hands;
Somehow I know they know themselves
To be The Fools of God.
The one whose face is unmasked is a woman,
A stocky beauty of radiant expression,
Whose miracle is astonishing:
She wades through the polished marble floor
As though it were bathwater, up to her shoulders,
Her ecstasy rendering her incorporeal
Yet supremely present,
Smiling in glory, God's Chief and Happiest Fool.
Who these mystics are I cannot say,
Nor why they consider themselves Celestial Jesters;
Though my guess is that the lesson here
Is that perfect faith births perfect joy,
As in the end, the Fool has the ear of the King.
Bureaucracy is the space that lies
between the civil of civilization
and the indifference of each of us
"it's our policy", the only libation
Bathwater of common sense evaporates
as heat bakes away feeling and decency
purposed seemingly only to exasperate
lulling purveyors to complete complacency
Like shipwrecked sailor, rafting away
upon and ocean of saltwater and thirst
"rules must be followed" all that they say
as, going under for the last, we're cursed
Systems bureaucracy, a creation of men
proves itself mightier than sword or pen
© Goode Guy 2013-07-19
“By the way, Ron Paul wants
to eliminate the Department of Energy”
“Ah! with that one statement
he has won my vote!”
…
…
…
“I see… he wants to eliminate
every other cabinet-level department, as well”
“YOU MUST THROW OUT THE BATHWATER
WITH THE EVIL DEMON-CHILD!”