THE DUNNY BRUSH
It has been here since modern sewerage was begun
and each water closet usually has at least one.
But to get a participant to use it, can really be a chore.
Most folk will use the paper but sadly for some, the Dunny brush ignore.
We have warned, scolded and abused them about their stain,
To grab the handle and scrub up and down again and again and again.
Many just don`t get it . They will not own their own poo,
so they leave it in the bowl. It is not their responsibility to clean the flamin loo.
So we have had workshops for the solution,
To brainstorm and solve the concern for this ablution.
Some have installed water jets to clean the soiled parts,
While others have janitors who make regular inspections while pushing their cleaning carts.
Alas, around here these luxuries we haven`t got,
so we ask you the Guest, to give it your best shot.
To learn the art of the toilet brush is easy, so don`t do your thing and run.
Grab it by the handle between forefingers and the thumb.
Now scrub it hard and sure till all traces are unstuck.
If it has caused you to sweat a bit, just remember,
It isn`t ours or theirs, its your smelly muck.
Categories:
forefingers, education, humanity, humor, motivation,
Form: Free verse
I heard a knock-knocking on the door.
It was my childhood self, visiting my adult life.
What had I achieved? it asked,
and where had I been?
Was pay equal yet? it wanted to know,
is heaven still a dream?
Heaven, it pondered, is it here on earth
in butterfly wings and melting snow?
It is spiralling in Dante’s nine circles, loved by Venus,
or simply in the cry of a new-born?
Heaven, it mused, is it above us in the air,
exploding in stardust, travelling like light to an eye?
Is it cradled between fingertips in a Vatican chapel,
or is it felt in pats on the back, any small success?
I looked at my childhood self,
unsure of this placed called Heaven.
Was it aflame inside a Jewish Menorah,
or walking in Jannah, a Muslim-named paradise?
Was it in beads of blood upon a crown of thorns,
or swaddled with first born sons chosen as a sacrifice?
So, with forefingers and thumbs I
made a rectangle with both hands.
“It’s in here”, I told my childhood self, “whatever
you see in this space from where you stand.”
Categories:
forefingers, heaven,
Form: Free verse
I never know what to say when he calls me
beautiful. There is nothing pretty about
counting calories or thinking about
my bathroom floor every time I
get stressed and anyway it's
never enough.
I went through hell and back and
all I got was a few extra pounds.
I've been through hell and back and
now it's like I'm stuck with a
snowstorm - the ghosts of
boyfriends past haunting the
back of my neck - sometimes I
get goosebumps without
knowing why.
He tells me I'm
beautiful and it happens very
rarely. I say I will only live
up to it if I lose all the weight; bones
sticking out begging for attention;
sometimes my
forefingers dig the side of my thumbs: a
desperate hunger for showing.
He barely questions it or cares
about my poetry and it's turned into a
sad joke. The cliche of a
girl that once was; the
reflection staring back
at me and I don't
know what to say.
Categories:
forefingers, angst, anxiety, food, image,
Form: Free verse
I have never laid eyes on him
And still I know every curve
Every edge of coastline of his body…
I know the way his hands feel
As they move joyfully
Over my breasts…
I know what it feels like
To dive into his hair
At the nape of his neck
And run the tip of my tongue
Along his long long eyelashes…
I know what it feels like
To succumb to the unstoppable urge
To press his earlobes
Between my thumbs and forefingers
Or bury my nose in his armpits
And breathe him in there…
I know the feel of his unshaved chin on mine
When I kiss him…
I know how it feels to press my nipples
Into the rough black hair on his chest
When he pulls me closer…
And I know how to gather my soul
Into the contours of his dreams as he sleeps…
And my body
More transparent and honest than my mind
Presses against the closed door
Of the curve of his back
And my heart beats on it
Pleading for forever…
Categories:
forefingers, longing, love,
Form: Free verse
On sunny summer mornings
the myriad markers gleam
and shimmer dreamlike
in the distance.
Visions from the stillness rise,
but only of the past,
for in this place,
time has come
to sudden end.
Glimpsed on headstone faces
in plain and shallow font
are etchings of their names.
Forefingers trace the course
of letters and summon memories,
suddenly vivid, of the fallen—
perhaps the only form
of resurrection most alive
will ever know.
A place of buried treasure this—
of ones revered and honored
who would unlock secrets of the mind,
give us cures for all disease that
we might live a thousand years
and summon knowledge beyond imagining.
Yet we have robbed ourselves of such,
for all these gifts lie with them interred;
their honors go unclaimed.
On headstones too are symbols carved,
emblematic of their faiths, for
we would have our deities
compete for attribution
until the soils of all the world
run red in honor of Their names.
Yet in the end our Gods are
much too small, dwarfed by
mankind’s boundless vanity.
Categories:
forefingers, war,
Form: Free verse
Like the gate-crashing sun
In a shower of rain
They walk into the arena
With forefingers engaged with the trigger;
Bori rises in the shower of blood
In the early hours of January Fourth:
Guns play us the drum of death
And we danced with the wisp of leaves.
Categories:
forefingers, angst,
Form: Free verse
A tip of an iceberg or the passion in a volcano.
Legions of dread and fear held back in reign.
Beauty, holding the past and present together.
Lush black orientation of that pretty face.
A witch hunt into those darkened eyes.
Love’s story, of sorrow and detachment.
Unwritten words as flashes of lightening.
Sharpness probing the photogenic poise.
Forefingers holding pressure at the temples,
Throbs in the veins of life, pacified, drowned.
A balance drawn from the fading light,
Metals luster; strewn over the earthen face.
Timid are the living, in varied textures, hues
Whither exist the therapeutic streams of pain,
Reflections in the happiness of other’s joys,
The moon and the clouds, playing with time.
Categories:
forefingers, life
Form: Free verse