They don’t look tough, but they are angry.
Effortlessly taking off his scarf.
Bouncing around with a coal smile.
He didn’t look that tough, just round and tilting his head.
But when everything else melted, he stood tall anyway.
Even though an eye fell off but he acted like it was nothing.
Crossed the street like a snowman does to start a fight.
Got hit by a car that day.
The thing about hitting a snowman?
His carrot nose gets flattened.
And this slush is nothing to a moving vehicle.
So if you need to fight a snowman…
The car wasn’t dented at all.
So the driver and I both laughed.
I kicked the slush around- no bones or anything.
The snowy flesh continued to get run over all day.
Life is like fighting a snowman.
It all gets cleaned up in a carwash.
A tinted rainbow smeared with blood
On its surface lies the bodies of youth devoured by guns
Guns aimed at them by the same people who were meant to protect them
46 years later we are still fighting the same battle as the class of 76
But now the narrative has changed
Instead of fighting against being taught in a language we don’t understand
The fight is against fees and black on black oppression
Please forgive mama that they didn’t tell you when you were voting in 1994 that you were voting for your grandkids and great grandkids to be unemployed
Please forgive me sir that they didn’t tell you ukuthi you were voting for your kids to be working at a carwash with a Masters degree
I am sorry that they didn’t tell you, you were voting for black-on-black oppression
I take a word and tear it apart
carwash
car jumps off the page and drives off
wash nabs ing and makes it stay
I add machine to washing
washing machine, an old-fashioned term
does anyone use it anymore?
Or is it like mathematics, reduced forever to math?
Bubbles fill up the laundry room
Bubba does a cartwheel as the bubbles dissipate
cart and wheel, I split them up too
Now they remind me of a prairie schooner not a gymnast’s trick
Bubba gloats a bit because he added the A himself after splitting from les
Words are stubborn, opinionated, they have their own ways and means
I stand back, watching in awe, wondering what their next move will be.
A slave of words.
I want to run her words
through a carwash, they are not dirty,
just stale, the way a classic corvette
needs a rinse occasionally, but never a re-paint.
Dinner together in a roadhouse,
the nasal song of a country boy
trapped in a ball-breaking melody.
I can’t hear her words,
she can’t hear mine…finally we’re communicating.
An owl in a hollow tree can hear the whole dark forest.
I imagine I am roosting in her throat,
listening, not to her mind or mine,
but Brailing my way around.
In those vocal folds, a little girl is weeping.
a mother belittles and scolds.
The server comes around. “How you’ll doing.”
She and the waitress look to me,
but I am still in the hollow of her throat
a space now witnessing
my own doleful litany of sad songs.
I want to run her thoughts
through a carwash, they are not dirty,
just old, the way a classic corvette
needs a rinse occasionally, but never a re-paint
Dinner out together,
the background music is too loud.
I can hardly hear her words,
she barely hear mine
An owl in a hollow tree can hear the whole dark forest.
I imagine I am roosting in her throat,
listening, not to her words or mine,
but Brailing my way around her silence.
Then I hear it, there between her vocal folds
a little girl is weeping,
a mother belittles and scolds.
The server comes around. “How you’ll doing.”
She and the waitress look to me,
but I am still in the hollow of her throat
a space now witnessing
my own doleful litany of sad songs.
I want to run her thoughts
through a carwash, they are not dirty,
just old, the way a classic corvette
needs a rinse occasionally, but never a re-paint
Dinner out together,
the background music is too loud.
I can’t hear her words,
she can’t hear mine…finally we’re communicating.
An owl in a hollow tree can hear the whole dark forest.
I imagine I am roosting in her throat,
listening, not to her mind or mine,
but Brailing my way around her silence.
Then I hear it, there between her vocal folds
a little girl is weeping,
a mother belittles and scolds.
The server comes around. “How you’ll doing.”
She and the waitress look to me,
but I am still in the hollow of her throat
a space now witnessing
my own doleful litany of sad songs.
Licks its fur and paws
Cleaner than a carwash
Motor's purring now
It hurts when I go for a walk
and get attacked by the same old dog,
it hurts when I run over things
I can't see because of the fog,
it hurts when I'm in the shower
and come out with 1st degree burns,
it hurts when I'm stuck in traffic
and have to go pee real bad,
it hurts when my family flees
when I try to sing like Adele,
it hurts when I get stung by a bee
and my rear end starts to swell,
it hurts when I trip over the cat
and fall down the front porch steps,
it hurts when that same mama bird
starts pecking at me because of her nest,
it hurts when I'm leaving a store
and their alarm suddenly goes off,
and everyone stops and stares
at you including your own boss,
it hurts when I come out of a carwash
and have a bird turd splatter on my car,
it hurts when I run out of gas
and have to walk real far,
it hurts when my deodorant
fails me in the 7th hour,
it hurts when I come out of a salon
and don't look like a supermodel,
it hurts when I make a meal
and they claim its Fear Factor food,
it hurts when I can't make someone laugh
when their in a real bad mood.
I hope everyone has a very Happy and Safe 4th of July!:)
A chain that’s fallen off
A gear that’s lined up wrong
A belt that’s all worn out
A broken come-along
A four-by at the carwash stuck
Something round here really sucks
A bay that doesn’t give a truck
A babe that doesn’t give two trucks
I’ll try to oil that squeaky wheel
And lighten up the load, you see
I’ll try to tell you how I feel
And somehow get you back to me
Copyright © Mike Martin 2015
as i drive by
it caught my eye
it was yellow and green
my car need to be clean
they had a music theme
at the carwash ba
drink and wink
in my
car
I have this friend not many would have thought I would have he is shall I say not quit clear,
he wears mascara loves to take exlax dosn't like to wear underwear and will only get a french manicure,
I meet him at an all night carwash he had asked me if I could help him clean his carpet,
in his car was a mess kleenex all over the place bags of cotton candy and what look to be old cole slaw still wet,
I was almost afraid to help you see I didn't want to get a rash or any thing,
but I helped any way as we talked I learned he worked in the same division as I did at the D.M.V.
then I noticed who he was you're that guy who was hell bent on breacking up with that girl Catie was that her name?
he said "you were there that day? I thought I was going to a have brain hemorrhage that girls in sain."
when we finished I shook his hand told him my name he said " I'm Tom but my friends call me Angelic"
I'll be calling you Tom, that was three years ago I'm glad we became good friends after all being unclear boy can he sell it.
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