Short Dustpan Poems

Glass
Slivers
Broken chards
In the kitchen
We are all barefoot
Daddy’s eyes are not sharp
Baby wants to help of course
Big sister takes baby upstairs
Mama heads for the broom and dustpan
...

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poverty a blight 
a dustpan for the fight
keep our cities clean 

armed with will and might
the Israelis got it right
strategy obscene 

burn them in their tents
bid vermin good riddance
best not to be seen...

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Hands on hips,
sweat on her forehead,
tongue in knots
heart in her throat
she asks—

Are there paper towels?
My kid threw up in the wine aisle.

Sweat on his forehead,
knees on the tile,
a seventeen-year-old employee
scoops bile into a dustpan...

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puppy fights the broom when I get it out
I try to scoot him but he weighs sixty-five pounds
He does not budge
sits down on the pile I was trying to get up
chews on my plastic dustpan
rolls onto his back, smashing the mess into the rug
prevents me from cleaning up his messes every day
a dance I do not attempt often
for I always lose
Puppy won.
Me zero...

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Mixed marriages never work his mother said
But she was a stool, and his father was a bed
Yours worked he told her, and for a long time
He was a dustpan who had fallen in love with a dime

Dimes are plentiful scattered here and there
His mother said “to marry one I would not dare”.
Dustpan reminded his mother it was his life.
Then he made the shiny dime his brand new wife....

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Death belies the darkness summoned,
tombstone-colored is the sky,
shards of memories merely fragments,
wailing wind the sole reply.

Violent storm winds strip the tree limbs
like a poltergeist, unseen,
tawdry feeders, heavy wind chimes,
beat against the window screens.

Waiting for the glass to shatter,
like so many childhood dreams,
china teacups, rosebud patterned
in the dustpan, unredeemed.


© 2009 Danielle White...

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I think about eating a cookie
It’s not mine; it is theirs.
But I had no breakfast, so lookie….
It's up for grabs on the top of the stairs.

Old dog yelps, “don’t do it, Pup!”
This aged geezer never fills up my confidence cup.
I leave the cookie and army of ants move in.
Now may I have it? I yelp with a grin.

Mama of the house picks it up in a dustpan.
I will never listen again to this old man.
It’s gone now, in the garbage can.
I howl the night away, annoying this old man....

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