Long Bathtubs Poems

I remember my father’s hands as a plumber’s hands—fiercely strong, calloused, rough, knuckle-battered, and dirty after a long-day’s work. Those hands shoveled; unclogged drains and toilets; repaired leaks; and installed pipes, commodes, and bathtubs. Those...

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Five ducklings feeding

The back of the camper bus
proudly sported the family 
seven yellow stickers ducks 
five little ducklings in a line
feeding on life presented to
the world growth sustenance
nourishment and meaning

For every fellow traveller
to ponder smile...

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They parachuted in the sky with a mission to live or die hundreds of them bond together, cruising in the skies and surveying the hills .I watched from earth with curiosity as they broke the...

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Dearest Santa, my one wish may seem strange
but please do not interpret me as snide.
I wish this kindness so please do arrange  
my Christmas gift of a mail order bride.
Surely she would lighten my...

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"American Grafitti" took me back again to High School in the 1960's
"Back to the Future's" nifty hot rod took me back in time and almost left me!

"City Slickers" took me way out west, to rustle...

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Why won't mama go to bed
Said Ned to Freddy Flake
I don't think she has been fed
There must be some mistake

Freddy gives to Mama Eddy
Children for her sake
Eddy lives for Papa Freddy
And their home to make

Sunny,...

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It is the singing bird.
It is the yellowing pages of old books gathering dust;
It is hot bread.
It is the sun, our beautiful laughs, and forgotten past.

It is the sunflowers, and the grace with which they...

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He never left for long,
his footprints left marks all across my kitchen floor
and I slipped over the waning of November, sometimes,
as my hands scarred themselves, the empty callouses 
the left over burns that scalded the...

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Unsung Laborers Day of Humanity!

Hail to the unsung laborers who labor every day for a year, and at least up to eighteen more years!
Hail to the unsung laborers who labor as they carry a child...

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She's thirty-three, single,
her Mom babysits her
five year old son.
She reassures herself it's
just two more hours,
then it's the blessed weekend.
Which means delicious sleep.
She has no nest egg,
she's just getting by.

There is one kind aging matron
who makes...

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It’s alright to fall, sometimes
It’s okay to be lonely
I tell myself this
Easing  into of bathtubs brewing with insecurity
Bubbles erasing traces of sin
Fortified between each strand of hair that he touched
It stains the skin, ...

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A Hundred Years Ago

By Elton Camp

(Statistics and facts apply only to the USA)

It was forty-seven years the average man would live
And twenty-two cents an hour the average pay to give

There were eight thousand automobiles--not any...

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The land around here looks like it belongs to the side of a lake,
it slopes downward gently, suggesting a meeting with water,
it front-yard-surfs on grass rippling winds,
it slowly sails under the puffy power of clouds.
but...

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up up up up
the escalator of fortune & fame
up up up up
the bounsy frogman rises
up up up up
selling out his own kind for wealth
up up up up
now posh & proud in his green villa
up up...

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I'm promised to your finger tips
The ones that run through my hair and run across my skin
When there's space between that skin and the cloth that hangs off me
My shirts aren't tucked into my pants...

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Translucent turquoise tide pools
soft shimmer on the sand,
mirrors for vain seagulls,
bathtubs for crusty crabs.
The tide slap lapping on the beach,
cavorting up and down the shore
with sounds of gentle laughter
mixing tumbling rocks and broken shells.
Adrift along...

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We carry small talk above our heads, ceilings drip clouds.
Nothing is put away.  Coats dangle over chairs in layers.
Drugged by spate and mizzle, denim droops, 
snagged over rummage
and the outstretched arms of impedimenta.

The house...

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Why shave?
Why bathe?
Why behave?

Should a man let self-maintenance make him a slave?
If he bucks expectation, will all think him depraved?

Perhaps think about starting a hippie enclave…
Where the bathtubs are puddles and the streets are unpaved.

But...

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Cramped steps acquaint heavy hatch reluctant 
     Cushion hush cellar isolate, harsh sun migraines
     Catapulted myopic into apocalyptic destruction 
     Crumple of coastal...

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While wandering some wooded paths
We witnessed warblers taking baths.
Some rocky croppings, they’d detected,
Had some dips where rain collected.

Several types of birds appeared
And waited ‘til the “bathtubs” cleared.
Taking turns, they each immersed
While those in waiting chirp-conversed.

The...

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A squirrel got into the apartment,
it picked a lock with a dry thorn.
The smell of dank fur clung.

We carried small talk above our heads.
Nothing put away but dangles.
Denim droops, snagging
the arms of rumpled shadows,
fusty jeans...

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Don't dare joke with their doctrine
Nor raise it in a latrine
Like had tried Goofing Kathrine 
Now melted like margarine!
Their Doctrine not in  bathrooms:
Bathtubs never living rooms;
Their camera can scenes zoom,
As one body choose your...

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