Best Disinfected Poems
I
I am disinfected, sanitised from touch and eyes
Do not hold me. I am Bakelite and you smolder
Sat solid, the wall cold against my spine. A back-rest
To concrete electrocution.
I am distilled from Suburbia and Bohemian at Brandenberg
Rigid and saturnine. Heavy lidded Lichtenstein moons
And ruby lip and cheek.
Dumb-flustered and silent rictus
Nothing changes.
II
She edges closer with ostentatious mute steps. Like a bride
And thrice as white with crimson orb flowing underneath
Her caped wings and paper hat. Tiny dragging movements
As though her legs could snap
This marionette matchstick girl unfurls her bouquet of fingers intertwined
And ruffles from her drapes fragments of paper and a tiny plastic cup
I do not notice her. The bleach sticks heavy to the throat and
She envenoms me to the core stomach
She speaks. It is static heavy and foriegn, black-lipped vowels and dull
Continuations of barely literate sounds.
My words are daggered brutes, any poetry the less of my expectations
Is instantly meaningless, crass, common, nauseous and disgusting
Her flowing prose was illegible on those lips. Sounding almost spat
I could have silenced nine decades to my two and circled her in criticism
She would never understand with her barely-English cold translations of her
Own English mother-tongue.
III
People are fascinating
Occassionally
I find I look at them and linger, I study them and calculate their complex algebras
Undoubtedly we are products of our parents and the less of us by-products
We are strings and apples and figs
The woman with her ghost-white face and dress. Her parents were too strict
You can see it in her face, how if you even turn away her eyes circle with bags
And she feels lost, she could cry a thousand summers and undoubtedly should trade my place.
As of my own parents they probably loved me too much. Sheltered me and then
Stopped abrupt as death and cyanide fizzing
Suddenly trading my lineage into friendship and smiles and no, do silence yourselves
I am a maypole and the strings circle about me
Life and ambition they feed upon me, draining me in complex nervous disorder
I am a living question mark
I can feel it
Eating below my skin.
Willing, future wraps in entailment
music playing tricks on the mind
black to light
back to black
distilling moments
bleeding
infernal internal attack
slow lit cigarettes
ignition, pain felt recognition
burnt, a disarray of haze
cutting in and out of undue ambiance
unfiltered in musk filled stall
I, me, all
facing into the wind
taking it in
worlds keep spinning
even if the jester has lost her song
fear spread out in the country
where the once living soon are dead
the kookaburra sits in the gum tree
laughing
there's no one left to see
disinfected
hands can't embrace
dying, the human race
shuttered and sheltered
I refuse to go away/that way
fly to the heavens
the clouds are forming
an ark, a covenant
be that second,
time it's ticking away
the bush has been burning brightly
for way way to long now
put out the cigarettes
emerge from the haze
start living,
and breathe
They wiped my thoughts
with antiseptic hands,
wrung my mind through linen logic
and hung me between breakfast
and scheduled silence.
Every hour—accounted for.
Every spark—neutralised.
Brainwashed.
Hope came in timed doses—
measured in milligrams
and dispensed with a paper cup
and plastic smile.
I swallowed the sun in tablet form
until it glowed from the inside
like a malfunctioning lamp.
Brainwashed.
I used to speak in fractured gold,
each sentence a riddle
spun from starlight and defiance.
They taught me to speak correctly—
which meant quietly,
which meant not at all.
Brainwashed.
They dressed me in fabric
the colour of pause,
stitched my name
into the hem of conformity,
taught me not to wander
outside the red line
of permissible imagination.
Brainwashed.
They made me fill in boxes:
Do you still hear them?
Do you still dream strange?
Do you still think
you are more than
this?
I circled no, and smiled.
Brainwashed.
My mirror stopped recognising me.
It showed a still ocean
where once there were storms.
I waved—but my reflection
had better things to do
than remember who I was
before routine became religion.
Brainwashed.
But some nights—
when the world forgets to monitor me,
and the ceiling isn’t watching—
I find poems hidden
under my tongue,
fierce and unprescribed.
I whisper them backwards
to keep them safe.
Still writing.
Or so they think.
Because inside the silence,
beneath the disinfected compliance,
something unwashed pulses—
raw, brilliant,
and unfinished.
I remember.
We ride the cattle rail Not knowing exactly what lay ahead. For weeks there's
been no heat, No bathrooms and we've barely been fed. We arrive at our
destined location. Sobibor...Sobibor...Sobibor, Is the death camp for Jews.
Opening widely, the gate to Hell With train whistle loud and prolonged, News of
our arrival they tell. Orders given, the boxcar doors open. The air so fresh, the
pines are livid. Decisions to make.....What to do? What to do? Tailors,
seamstress', blacksmith, carpenters Are there any?
Volunteers?...Yes...No ...Good decision, bad decision? Shouted at, screaming,
people being beat Kept others orderly on their march. Houses with names,
gardens with flowers, and Signs pointing to canteen and showers. Sobibor
seemed peaceful, not a place of murder. To the Ukraine to work you will go.
Because of lice, Women need their hair to go. There are epidemics, You must
be disinfected. Naked and unaware of the lies, They each take the walk Through
the tube-"Road to Heaven". The screaming strong at first, Weakens gradually
until it dies. Why?...Why?...Why?...You say. Why don't you fight back? Pick up
that gun, shoot that guard! That would lead to your death plus as Many others
they could hack. Why don't you escape? Where would I go? Here I have no
home, no family. ..It is cold. I have no warm clothes or shoes...I am on the verge
of starving. What will I eat? How do I get through the mine fields? How do I get
through the armed Poles in the forest? We do revolt... the camp as a whole.
Sasha, the Soviet prisoner of war... A new leader... good for our soul. He gave us
some hope. We were working class people, Everything was taken from us. We
were cold. We were hungry. We were beaten. We were killed. We lost all hope.
Oppression lets genocide happen. Genocide has happened in the past.
Genocide is happening now. Genocide will happen in the future. Greed and
power can and does lead to genocide. Only policy makers worldwide...God
willing, Can help stop the killing.
"Laid Upon Their Alters"
qhapaq hucha
it begins at birth
the most precious
resource of all
we are registered,
audited, one by one
under the rod measured
by lizard rule
the capacocha
children of complacency
dumbed down, some
thorns, uppity, removed
heads counted
to be held high
as trophies, those played
and won
for the greater good
oh yes,
we belong;
we belong,
we’ve always belonged,
to the ruling class
sapa inca
orders sacrifice, daily
all are held up to the Sun
of the others’ huacas,
accountable,
we are ears of corn
sheared and scattered
kurnels sown to replenish
a new world
fresh crops
laid upon
their oily alters
falls the empires
one by one
like conquistadors
they dissolve us
holy sees parted
red and bleeding
we are all children
well drugged
foreplay for prophecies
all war rooms
cleanly wiped
disinfected, by fire
baptised deja vu
submerged
together
we are something else
to behold
realm of the four parts
these final moments
matter
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
“With their royalty and focus of worship destroyed,
the general population readily accepted Spanish rule
as “what was done.” This created local assistance which,
along with outside factors, allowed the Spanish
to completely conquer the region by 1572,
marking the end of the Inca Empire.“
“This pattern of manipulating a people’s concept
of ideological power, in conjunction with
relational and material power,
is seen throughout history
and is often a large component
of the fall of great empires.”
"That’s why the banalities matter.
When the real issues come up, healthy states,
the ones capable of handling and minimizing
everyday dysfunction, have a great deal more capacity
to respond than those happily waltzing toward their end.
But by the time the obvious, glaring crisis arrives
and the true scale of the problem becomes clear, it’s far too late.
The disaster—a major crisis of political legitimacy, a pandemic,
a climate catastrophe—doesn’t so much break the system
as show just how broken the system already was."
Six a.m. the alarm click has rung
Time to wake up, time to start being mom
Wake up children
Get dressed, brush your teeth
We haven't a moment to lose
Time to start moving those feet
Jump in the mini-van
Start the engine up
Crap the windows are frosted
It must have dropped temperature
Below 0 again
Kids on the way out the front door
Their pop-tarts just dropped
On the mini-van floor
No need to worry
No need to fret
It looks like this morning
A bagged school breakfast you'll get
Kisses and I love yous
As we pull up to the school
All of this in an hour
My day is not through
Get to the house
Take out the dog
Make up a grocery list 15 feet long
Clean up the bathroom
Gross what's that on the wall
Some disinfected will kill it all
Hubby is home, he's came for lunch
Griping about something to do with his work
Throw in the laundry
It has to smell good
Sit for a moment
Take in the views
Soon school will be over
That means homework and messes
Than dinner and baths
Oh I hate those stresses
All of this while trying
To balance being wife and sex kitten
Finally "WHEW" everybody's in bed
Time to lay down go to sleep
So tomorrow I can do
All this again
Through the bank account
over painted naivety
it is so intense just to be here
between look and expectation
knowing
I'm just one step from alighting
to be
your personal abyss
afford me completeness
in the same way that
high ranked husband
of well polished wife
pays to a prostitute
by the sadness of creator
using the silk ribbon
you are compressing my foot
(praying that it will stop the growth as the way you'll keep me yours )
I promise that I'll learn:
- to wash my hands in that lemon juice after finishing the portion of high quality
shrimps
- I won't applause in that gap between two arias
- I will pull on that poker face when your hand suddenly leaves mine while we're
standing in the street and you are asking me for an address as you are lost ....
sorry sir I can't help you, I am not from here
with naive faith-
secret is easier to bear in two-
piece of paper
adopted the image of birth
grey tiles
mannerly disinfected
under the glasses misplaced empathy
hand in the pocket of white coat
and naive faith
i guess there is no alternative
when the only thing left as your heritage are nails
i wish it is not the life
and that just a day went wrong
this way
only thing left is a label of
river
down which
no one will ever again dare to
release the paper boats
it would be better
everything
if only
it crossed your mind
to
tide my tubes
THANK YOU FOREVERMORE
Everywhere you step
That is where I am
With my oxygen hose
Under your feet again
When you are walking into a room
My oxygen hose catches your eye
You see it dragging on the ground
As you gently step over it to get by
It seems to be continual
To always be in your way
Everything you do for me
You do it every single day
You cook, you clean, you wash
You sweep, mop and much more
Making sure it is all disinfected
For anything coming in the door
On top of it all you are my friend
Always showing me that you care
Like the times you take me places
While pushing me in a wheelchair
You sprinkle spices on all my food
Making everything taste just right
You even make sure I’m breathing
As I am sleeping through the night
I remember dancing back in the day
To the song of Precious and Few
We went separate ways after that
So thankful to be routed back to you
We had dance classes not long ago
You remind me at times with a twirl
While you wear your special smile
You do make me feel like a little girl
I appreciate our times shared now
While watching a TV documentary
Or YouTube songs, a Family Feud
Or even all those reruns of Al Bundy
One of my really favorite things
Is when you take me for a ride
You set everything up for me to sit
And share our friendship side by side
I apologize for all those things I did
Or what I said to push you away
From having a drink or living with me
Even how together we used to pray
I don’t know if you’ll ever read this
I’m bound to be on your last nerve
By crying or saying the wrong thing
Surely something you don’t deserve
You’ll always be my best friend
Because I feel so close to you
Hopefully you’ll never forget me
When our life together is through
Also the sprinkles of hugs and kisses
Will remain a memory in my dreams
I want to THANK YOU FOREVERMORE
For all you’ve done beyond extreme
Florence McMillian (Flo)
Save your energy...
I've found my center a place to sit amongst the absent.
My mother-my best thought; says she made this all just for us.
Love your enemy...
My father killed my dog-my best friend, lost.
My father killed him then disinfected both hands in our kitchen sink.
A place to sit-to insist the other exists.
Consistently I forget my missing leg; perhaps with the proper measurements
I could fashion myself an adequate replacement...
Save your energy...
My mothe stood by-my father knows whats best for me.
He says he made it all up for us-that'd we'd better make it up to Him.
Love your enemy...
My mommy is secretly my most cherished memory.
I've found my center.
I dismiss those cornering me, gladly
burning down my home in the name of the one re-assuring me.
Save your energy...
I hate myself and everyone else.
I love speaking about myself; yes, I'm even a master at slaving myself. I service the help-first I self service myself heaping portions of self help. I hate myself and anybody else discussing my health. Accomplishments? Laundry lists!
The kitchen's disinfected, the worktops squeaky clean,
The laundry's in the wardrobe and nothing's left in the machine.
The crockery is washed and dry, it's stacked in cupboards, looking neat.
There's just one nagging problem, I've got nothing left to eat!
The village air is pristine, filtered and non polluted.
It is from all the germs, diseases and bacteria disinfected.
The country folks are simple, natural, serene and beautiful.
They are unaffected by ego, vanity but are truly cheerful.
God made the country and man made the town
Man made the town but the industries have
turned them artificial, selfish and only to groan
villagers are strangers to the hustle and bustle.
And many a worry of modern mechanical
metropolitan life, the jostle and tussle.
They live in the soothing silence of rural solitude.
Hospitality and charity is their warm attitude
They can digest whatever they dine.
At the daybreak they wake up fresh, fit and fine
They know what true exertion, true appetite,
true satisfaction and true sleep is.
They the various reveries and sounds
of nature do not miss.
The cock's clarion, the hum of grinding stones
the tinkle of farm bells.
The splash of waters, rustle of leaves,
the lowing of cows and the chime of temple bells.
It is a pleasure to listen to the whispering
wind and to see the golden rising sun
The laughing flowers, the evening shadows
lengthening and the crimson setting sun
The humble dwellings are built of clay and
thatched with cornstalks and hay,
No wonder the yokel here are content,perky,joyous and gay.
Blessed are those who enjoy the village life's pleasures.
Machines and industries have made man
mechanical without any measure.
The sky above may kiss the grass
Astounded by the ethereal beauty of the village life.
Quick clay
A dog sent in
Looking for survivors
Given the last hug?
Hunting for people
Silent in quick clay
In a delivery room
She was real and she was perfect
Stillborn
A song played in the room next door
Dobie Gray – Drift away
No beat
A wreck on the highway
Knocking on heaven’s door
A graveyard shift
Knocking on the door
Silence broken
Slow steps
A ship in distress
A chopper sent in
Looking for survivors
A doctor thinking
The silent ones can wait
In the cruel sea
The room was bright
The respirator turned off
Death was pronounced
The body wheeled away
The room cleaned and disinfected
Nobody should die alone
The seats are empty
Nobody tells me to shut up
And dance
Nobody tells me to leave this behind
And sing
One more song
I was very young,
Laying wrapped in cotton sheets.
Eyes heavy with soft happiness
Touched by the warm hand of a summer sun.
Breathed on by flower scented air
Cradled into a smiling sleep.
I was grown up
Laying wrapped in damp cotton sheets
Eyes dazzled with fierce desire
Touched by the flesh of dark promises
Breathed on by a scented whisper
Cocooned into a satisfied sleep
I was older still
Laying on a plastic seat
Eyes forced to find florescent lights
Touched by fear and longing
Breathed on by boozy fighters
Unable to sleep, waiting to be called
I was a parent
Laying in a too hot bed
Eyes wrestling against my ears
Touched by annoyance and sympathy
Breathed on by weary milky air
Forced not to sleep but longing for it.
I am very old
Laying wrapped in plastic sheets
Eyelids glued against my cheek
Touched by frigid cold
Breathed on by disinfected mouths
Waiting for sleep.
Six feet apart
Or
Six feet under
Distance lends enchantment
While
Closeness creates calamity
Watching for symptoms
And
Keeping out of harm's way
Browsing in shops banned
With
Online goods to be disinfected
Photographs to remind us
Of
Those we so want to hug
No longer cheering as part of the crowd
But
Confined to watching our heroes on the box
When will we see the end of lockdown
To
Restore colour to our now grey lives?
Before this virus our taken for granted treasures
Now
Deprived of our life-enriching pleasures.
you were crossing my mind the other day
a part of me just wanted to shoot you a text and say hey
but i knoe we left on unfriendly terms
all the love build just stopped and disinfected like a germ
you ment the world to me at a time,
but now its like all i dread on is that final goodbye line
we were one and now its as if nothing has ever begun
i knoe it hurts deep inside
so bad it makes you wanna hide & cry
but we both just sit there and deny
we loved enough to let go, but i wonder why these feelings still arent so
i thought love was everlasting, apparently not i guess some hearts are blinded
and peoples feelings just go passing