Formula Fe2 O3
Iron is just awesome – let’s see!
First it was prehistoric man
Who was always an iron fan
Iron is a third of the earth
Industry is iron by birth
Pritchard designed and Darby made
Iconic Iron Bridge won’t fade
Smelt pig iron from iron ore
Produces cast iron galore
Backbone of skyscrapers, bridges
Organs of cars, washers, fridges
Clever Bessemer carbon gone
Heralded steel for everyone
Mankind’s most ingenious feat
Turning raw earth to steel – so neat!
Iron’s compounds are versatile
No wonder it’s used all the while
Inks, fertilisers, pesticides
Paints, enamels and more besides
Many iron phrases pervade
Each as an English language aid
There’s ironclad, iron curtain
Iron grip and more for certain
We need it in a small amount
For on haemoglobin we count
Open your eyes and look around
Everywhere an iron surround
Iron has magnetic appeal
First place must be iron with steel
I changed tonight, of country, my friends,
I know a dirty girl from Tennessee,
More sparkling than a champagne cork,
With black rimmel and lipsticks on sale.
I changed countries last night, my friends,
I’d rather be a peasant than a townsman,
I prefer to say hello to donkeys and bees,
I found rhymes and silence in sweet California,
O Strange lands, birds understand me,
They tell stories to millennial trees,
I changed of country, my hats, poems,
I talk and dreams are an Oregon Indian,
Land of poetry, I cross without fear, railroads,
I don’t trust window cleaners and car washers,
Only poets can save you, my friends,
They let the horses run wherever they want.
A
jar now
mutely holds
washers and clamps,
nuts, bolts, screws, buttons, and the oddity.
It once held the dreams I dreamt and jangled
with hopes, desires
I’d saved, lost
in one
life.
I have never lost a sock
’twas the dryer did the deed
From the prison of my drawer
It has somehow now been freed!
I have never lost two socks
Washers often need a snack
Either that or they eloped
Anyhow, they ain’t been back
I have never lost three socks
On three wash days in a row
Conspiracy, I must profess!
The joke’s on me, I’ll never know
2/3/23
After YEARS of not losing a sock!
I am baffled!!!
Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch
after Richard Thomas Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”
O, terrible-immaculate
ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat,
where cleanliness is next to Art
—a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart),
a Persian rug (made in Taiwan),
a Royal Bonn Clock (time zone Guam)—
embrace my ass in cushioned vinyl,
erase all marks: ****, v-g-nal,
penile, inkspot, red wine, dirt.
O, sterilize her skirt, my shirt,
my skidmarked briefs, her padded bra;
suds-away in your white maw
all filth, the day’s accumulation.
Make us pure by INUNDATION.
Published by The Oldie, where it was the winner of a poetry contest. Keywords/Tags: hymn, art, America, laundry, laundromat, washer, dryer, appliances, clean, cleaning, cleanliness, clothes, clothing, underwear, god, godly, godliness, water, baptism, inundation, sonnet, analogy
This poem was inspired by the incongruence of discovering "works of art" while doing laundry at a laundromat with coin-operated washers and dryers. I was reminded of the experience while reading Richard Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer.”
How to replace the flapper chain? The spare toilets not flushing, so things remain.
My master bathroom now has a slight drip. Do I need washers? Another Lowe's trip?
I need to devise a maintenance plan or find myself a handy man.
Luckily, I still have my ex, who comes to my rescue when I'm perplexed.
His mechanical aptitude I've certainly missed.
He always come thru on my "honey do" list.
Washing clothes
a long days job as the new wash machine mom had was too good to be used
a Maytag ringer in the basement was the clue
Hot water fills the larger washer as it went round and round
pulling out the clothes, piece by piece
gentle and carefully into the ringer
as it sqeezed the water out
into a new tub of hot water, up and down splashing about
then into the third tub
finally through the ringer again
almost dry
to the lines outside under a hot summer sky
And We Call It……
Sprinkles, drizzles,
Mists and downpours;
Torrents, cloudbursts
Liquid sunshine;
Showers, deluge,
Mists and squalls,
Gully washers -
Thunder showers.
Pelting, pounding,
Soaking, drenching;
Dancing, pouring
Cats and dogs;
Bursting, drifting
Floating, falling,
Coming down
In buckets.
Comes in summer
Rides on thunder,
Comes in autumn
Twirls on whirlwinds;
Comes in winter
Plays with blizzards;
Comes in springtime
Floats on breezes.
Puddles, pools
Of standing water;
Dripping eaves –
Filling gutters;
Celebration
For umbrellas
And we call it…..
RAIN!!!
We live as kings and queens of yesterday could only dream
Central heat, plumbing, air-conditioning, washers and dryers too
We shower once or twice a day, with conditioner and shampoo
Steak every night should we want it, followed by cake and ice cream
So why all the self-absorbed anxiety? Why all the alienation?
You'd think we'd be glad of more time to exercise our imagination
Difference is royalty had servants who responded to their every command
Kings and Queens had lively instantaneous conversation on demand
Dependent on machines, woe are we
Leading emotion-free lives
of people-less poverty
Once a week we do the wash;
It’s part of our routine.
With just the two of us at home,
There’s not that much to clean.
Apartment living means, for one,
Machines are there to share.
The basement has the laundry room;
We do the washes there.
My husband loads the washers
After I have bagged the clothes,
Then switches them to dryers,
Which is how cycle goes.
We both head down, when time has passed,
To fold and stack the load.
He piles his items, I do mine
And by a silent code…
We split the sheets and towels
And whatever else we share
Until the dryer’s empty
And the folding table’s bare.
We schlep the basket back upstairs
And put the wash away
Until next week, when once again
It will be laundry day.
The box arrived at lunchtime from the East,
components counted out,all twenty one,
the screws, washers and dowels all there at least,
but noticed the instruction sheets were gone.
Spread out around me like some I.Q test,
bits lay in random fashion on the floor,
was confident that I would do my best
since I had sat at one of these before.
Table stands propped up with a homemade peg,
stood at a jaunty angle near the door,
chairs like cows that have been shot in the legs.
First meal put down slides off onto the floor.
I sit back, scratch my head and look confused
Cat scratches ear, and wanders off, bemused.
If my flesh should ever wither away
My soul will live on forever and a day.
My good deeds and stains I've made in this world
Will cycle through forever like a washers whirl.
I will live forever...i could never die!!!
My spirit is what you loved
The flesh is for the eye.
You need not mourn nor lament
My flesh will die but my spirit will transcend.
You can enjoy me over and over like a cd or tape
In spirit i will live forever... day by day.
Prayers descend like acid rain from
oligarch-soaked manchurians, stumping
for elected office, praising hybrid
demigods, passing out vouchers to the
peasants.
A slow rumbling-
part of the night-sounds-of-curfew;
descends like fire ants.
Cleaners of the guilt, hidden in plain faith,
unable or unwilling to walk, feign
blindness, darkness helps.
Cellphone towers only reflect scripted
light, as memories of real sunshine, fade
to black. A good cup of coffee is hard to
find, all the fine beans were swept away
early on, replaced by dancing bears,
politely ignored. Thunderclouds, imagined
in shapes of our founding fathers,
encourage the deluge, slowly ascending.
Underground-
a grim band-of-believers watch (again)
a pirated tape of their favorite '80's movie,
'They Live' from the fabled city called the
new capital in 'The Postman' Minneapolis..
while the tormented sounds of-
plows
scraping overhead, and
hydrants,
bellys full, feeding power washers,
cascade
over hardened
faces.
05/11/14
minneapolis
© All Rights Reserved
Morning blues,
Morning must dos.
Pay the bills, clean the house
All this work and where's my spouse?
I suppose he is at work too,
Suffering from the morning blues.
"When you get off today, I say.
You'll have a load to put away.
You can start one more
And I'll head to the store.
While I'm gone
You can turn the vacuum on.
There are dishes in the sink,
Sorry the washers got a kink.
Now don't forget to make the bed
And fluff the pillow for my head.
If you think there's nothing more to do,
You're wrong and that’s why they call it the morning blues".
Levi Strauss suggested
That we wash our jeans too much.
Machines waste so much water
And we use them as a crutch.
The company wants us to know
That cleaning them’s a breeze.
You don’t need suds or washers,
You just pop them in to freeze!
That’s right – the freezer, which will help
To take away the smell.
I really wonder if that tact
Would work out very well.
It’s hard to picture, nestled
Next to ice cream, bread and ice,
My unwashed jeans and all because
Of corporate advice.
I’ll take my chances that the earth
Will not run out of water;
And I’ll keep washing by machine
Just like I think I oughter.
‘Cause sometimes good intentions,
Though some people they’ll appease,
Will have most of us just cluck our tongues
And utter loudly – “Please!”
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