Long Clothespins Poems

(A Rave By A Poet)      

Remember when you were a child? 
Adults seemed then to be in control, 
Almost like Gods, with special powers
That almost always knew
When you'd been up...

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Grandma Gretchen's in her rocker and she has something to say. 

She tells a visitor, a young man from the city, if he plans to write a book about life on a farm in the...

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Did You Learn Anything?

Go ahead.
Put your shoes on.
Walk outside and face the nervous day.
Know that your lungs will not resist you.
Know that your heart will still stir.
Put the key in the ignition.
Now turn the crank.

You...

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Relax, count my breath up to 4
Recall how Jesus chilled on His cross
Pinned like a cool butterfly
Hung like a shroud on the line
The crown of thorns felt fine
The nails betwixt ulna and radius divine
He didn't...

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A seething summer morning in the oil boom trailer park
Oral Roberts on the radio with the gospel told by Mark
The reek of raw petroleum is everywhere around
We little oil trash urchins play marbles on the...

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We weren't rich by any means
but our bellies were full and our clothes were clean

They didn't display those high priced names
but they wore fine just the same

We didn't ride around in fancy cars
Grandma saved pennies...

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An old preacher named Ned
Got it into his head
To make a musical pilgrimage
Before he was dead.
He claimed divine inspiration
To form a band and tour the nation,
And by so doing treat its ills,
Not with welfare checks...

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Whining, it happens when blizzards come calling
Grabbing a jacket I walk down the stairs
Beside the window where winter is lurking
Waiting about as if nobody cares

Coating the trees with a cottony fabric
Not quite as warm as...

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Waking up country
puts a smile on my face as
the golden sun tells me it is daylight,
my eyes open to its glorious sight.

Waking up country
is an open kitchen window dressed with
red and white gingham curtains flowing
with...

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Sentries of the night stand guard in perfect formation
Across the stretch of wire, like clothespins on a line
While speckled flocks of grackle stain the landscape
Spots of black against a field of brown.

As if on cue,...

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Wings of a monarch butterfly 
erratically flapping against a breeze.
Slimy trail of a snail
leaving ground ooze below the knees.

Clear sky of night has a pristine cosmic
view beyond polluted industrial haze.
Highway clean and clear of litter
alongside...

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When I was small
the starlings roosted one by one
on grandma’s party line wire
	(like jittery black clothespins)
to bandy their gossip back and forth
until the wire hummed
with their inanities.

By luck my slingshot found its mark.
One toppled from...

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Bruce Banner turned into the Hulk when he got a flu shot.
He turned into the Hulk because it hurt a lot.
He smashed the doctor's office and broke the doctor's neck.
You should've seen that office afterward,...

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Frayed and puckered in a heap
Skivvies on top, worn socks beneath
Lace collar curled up in disgust
Offensive smells to upper crust

Deep baskets poured out jumbled loads
Soap bubbles flip flopped to and fro
Pearl buttons twirled as I...

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the fence is now made of rust
the patio now has a see through floor
the grass is now a mirror for the aging sun
the trees are now all skeletons in the unfortunate name of abandonment

the clothesline...

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The house where I grew up
Came with a clothesline in the back,
A dryer being something that
Most homes those days did lack.

I learned to hang the towels,
Overlapping just a bit,
Since by doing so, more laundry
On the...

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Years ago, in Holland,
In a cool, eclectic store,
I bought a set of clothespins
To jazz up my home décor.

Of brightly colored wood
And smaller than the average size,
I pictured them with photos
Hanging like a sweet surprise.

My plan...

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giant clothespins as art?
I never realize they could be
But they are

Philadelphia has one made of steel
Designed by Claes Oldenburg
That clothespin is facing upside down
It could pin photographs maybe but not giant clothes

Turkish art professor Mehmet...

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She walks six floors up, resting between
To use rooftop clothes lines always unseen
 Hammocking deeply from wind blowing mean

Wooden clothespins hug the slack lines
Standing attention, the ancient, pinch kind
If fumbled, free-falling, hurling through time

Bring down...

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