The town fathers
are long neglected by scavenging vultures,
locked up as they are,
in the wood cabin, we call the town museum.
Inside the shack, there are old tintypes, sepia
photographs and the usual rural relics.
Outside, a small patch of lawn
divides the past from a main road,
one that bridges our hamlet
between two swelling and brawling cities.
Those cities also have their metropolitan relics,
grand achievements forever displayed
for groups of bored schoolchildren.
Outside, vultures are shood away
by men in HazMat suits.
Our community fathers are black-suited
grim featured farmers and church dignitaries,
even the mayors that are still alive
look out from their portraits
as if wishing for the odd vulture or two.
Nothing else around here bothers
enough to matter much.
Fields are pushed back beyond backyards.
We killed off all the rattlesnakes years ago.
Categories:
hazmat, poetry,
Form: Free verse
they suit up in hazmat suits
the door bursts open.
They pop me into a bubble and
whisk me to the sixteenth floor
I did not know this hospital had a sixteenth floor, I say
For three days people come to poke and prod me.
They take blood and wake me up at midnight
To say “I am your nurse”.
The sign on my door says not to enter without
full protection – a suit, goggles, footies, etcetera.
No one tells me what I have.
No one seems to know.
Whatever it is, it has left in three days.
They blindfold me and take me back to my car.
I think it is weird I am released at midnight
until I watch them load onto a spaceship and take off.
Categories:
hazmat, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Prose Poetry
Unbeknownst to them I am their wild child,
what a precious smile she’s a pussycat;
Lecherous phrases on iron they were filed,
unbeknownst to them I am their wild child;
Calculated and curt is how I’m styled,
silk hat graffitied with the word ‘Hazmat’.
Unbeknownst to them I am their wild child,
what a precious smile she’s a pussycat.
Categories:
hazmat, cat, emotions, feelings,
Form: Triolet
Time place
scope and space
recover planning with
hazmat desires
actions by dissent
proportions to unoutcomes
serial deliverance by
traveling non neural pathways
around psycho resilience via
domestico-dysfunshun
huma huma incestations fielding
familial inbred infestations
leading to blind intonations thereby
catapulting negative Ego equations.
Can we abide by selfless endeavors?
Categories:
hazmat, anxiety, forgiveness, happiness, identity,
Form: Free verse
Experimental Poem-On Schools Re-Opning
FORMAT.....JOSEPH'S STAR
School
Open, closed
Teachers just may strike
Vaccinations, masks or else
Why not Hazmat suits more fun
Makes me ill
Pills
I, 3, 5, 7,7, 3,1
www.shadowpoetry.com
Categories:
hazmat, school,
Form: Free verse
The men are handsome in their suits and ties
The women casually nude
picnicking in Paris in the 1860's.
This must be the new way
Parisians are cultured
Perhaps this is what we should all be doing
I stare at the freedom of the women
They are the lucky ones.
I kick off my knickers; I pull my dress over my head
Loud yelling commences
A museum guard runs up and covers me in a hazmat suit
He leads me into a room with other women who are all nude
Apparently we all saw the same canvas
Categories:
hazmat, art, women,
Form: Light Verse
Although Covid put the pole on lockdown
Santa thought of plan, with no one around
He’d wear a hazmat suit
The crew did not dispute
Mrs. Claus looked at him with a big frown
Alexis Y.
12-25-2020
*Merry Christmas Soupers
Stay safe and well
Categories:
hazmat, christmas, humor,
Form: Limerick
Silence is deafening
Like a dungeon dark hallway.
Door after close door of bounding
Moans and groans, and painful
Yelling gasping for air.
I sit in this cold
Dark cell shivering with my
Blacken thoughts.
Am I the only sane one?
Am I the only healthy one?
They come in and out
At all hours to poke and prob.
I, a human, a pin cushion
Ready for use.
Trying someplace else to delve
Madden hunger for More pain.
In isolation with no touch for comfort.
They in hazmat suits
Because they cannot breathe my breath
Or touch my tainted skin.
Claustrophobic in these four walls
Lord, please save me
From this darkness and pain;
Meet my exhausted lids to rest.
All I see are the haunting eyes
Of the ghost that had passed
Veiled in fear white sheets of snow.
12/15/2020
Categories:
hazmat, emotions, heartbreak, sick,
Form: Free verse
It’ll be an old fashioned Christmas,
with Santa due down the chute.
I bet he Purells his reindeer,
and Lysols his hazmat suit.
It’s an old fashioned Christmas.
We’ll all have on our masks,
and our muffled yuletide carols,
will be just like seasons past.
We’ll observe all the guidelines.
We’ll eat six feet apart.
We’ll have disinfectant under the mistletoe,
and keep safety in our hearts.
Sure, it’s an old fashioned Christmas.
One unique to the times.
The love this year might be careful,
but the feelings are genuine.
Categories:
hazmat, 11th grade, care, christmas,
Form: Rhyme
the elves built a new workshop and yes there’s a but
they didn’t use one-call and their phone lines got cut
isolated up north poor Santa missed some calls
he lost the warranty on his sleigh and an order of soccer balls
he missed the call about Rona and the mandate for a mask
Santa had no P.P.E. just some schnapps in a flask
there was a global pandemic much to his surprise
he was stopped on a rooftop and could only see eyes
he was greeted by a cop in a hazmat suit
Santa was drunk without a mask and had to reroute
they took Rudolph to the Zoo and impounded his sleigh
now Santa is under quarantine for the next fourteen days
Categories:
hazmat, christmas, humorous,
Form: Rhyme
I go backwards into 1961, so I can watch Elvis on TV.
He is terrific; makes me swoon. I adore him.
Then for some reason I think of Prince
So I reset my Time Machine to 1982. He is terrific!
What about the Mamas and the Papa’s? Mind suggests.
They were so good! What about the Beach Boys?
1958 it is. What about General Washinghood?
Who is that? Trust me you will love him. Go to 2052.
I get there and I am relieved to see we still have trees.
We are each wearing a hazmat suit with helmet though.
A person walking next to me raises my helmet and coughs in my mouth.
In thirty-two years we have not figured out how to eliminate bullies?
Categories:
hazmat, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Free verse
He’s a great guy, a leader, loyal true blue.
All I can say to that malarkey is pooh.
The feelings are total love or total hate.
Finding middle ground in nobody’s fate.
The virus is a hoax. I will not wear a mask.
Yes this is a Hazmat suit. Why do you ask?
Black lives matter. I would like to join in.
Are you crazy? You have the wrong color skin!
All the Democrats, all the Republicans, all the Liberals.
I hear the beginning of these sentences and I roll my eyes.
I have never met two identical Republicans, Liberals or Democrats.
Generalizing any group is small-minded, not based on facts.
Categories:
hazmat, 3rd grade, 4th grade,
Form: Rhyme
The coming of this pandemic noone have foreseen
A battle with an invisible, radical foreign
Such a killer that noone has ever seen
Stealing lives away leaving us all in grim
Yet there are heroes untold of their countless victories
Trying to save lives, they are willing to risk their own
Away from their loved ones, their hearts could go weary
But to their sworn duty, they get back up steadfastly
So that everyone could still keep their breaths
They wore heavy clothings, suffer consequences
They have braved all battles, so you continue living
While they try to resuscitate their own from ebbing.
Are you all willing to face this invisible foe?
Will you stand up for the sake of others?
Put your life aside to add breaths to those in need?
Your own precious life, to novel corona will you feed?
So you see it's not just as easy as you think
You say it's their job, they have to take the risk
Medical team are more than just professionals in hazmat suits
They are the hope of all nations, our dearest noble Frontline heroes.
Categories:
hazmat, appreciation, care, encouraging,
Form: Rhyme
One morning, all of a sudden, I woke up as a perfectly happy person. My children burst into tears, my wife called 911, the guys in the hazmat suits evacuated my neighbors, the city hall declared a state of emergency. The UN Security Council called for an explanation from my country authorities, but the feds play for time, monitoring me from outside the exclusion zone's perimeter: the only happy man on Earth is not much of a problem, actually.
a butcher shop in
a vegetarian block…
that’s what it looks like
04.06.2019
A Happy Haibun Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Caren Krutsinger
Categories:
hazmat, happiness,
Form: Haibun