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Barthwell Farmer Poem
Home from a chemo session, uncle lights up
a cigarette and collapses
to the slick plastic that covers your chaise
lounge, auntie. He thumps the upholstery
with his legs and elbows for blood
to circulate again. A flake
drifts. Dehydrated lips, uncle
inadvertently kisses ash. Cushions
puff up, deflate. Uncle floats
smoke rings to prove he still has breath.
Your bulbous urn ruptures his rings
on contact where curvature
casts uncle’s warped reflection, all mouth and smoke,
as he would rise to reach your urn on the mantle.
Uncle slouches back, watches his sports channel.
I head out with his hamper
and forget to check pockets before washing clothes,
his soggy receipts - - once grocery lists? - -
and tissues, torn apart, clumped up, fake snow
I have to scoop out of washing machines.
Absent-minded tasks at the laundromat, auntie,
where you’d bend in pain. Lint trays reinstall
fluff. I snap
and snap airborne dryer-flakes off towels.
Copyright © Barthwell Farmer | Year Posted 2022
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Details |
Barthwell Farmer Poem
candelabrum jewelled,
my neighbor fingers flames snuffed
out on perfumed sticks
candelabrum fueled,
I'm jilted once it's tilted
waxing my toupee
bug-eyed reflective,
buffed elevator floor wax,
I fume toward the roof
comfort yields its flight
a high-rise where pigeons peck
seedy sunsets bald
hairs on end build up
this evening, winds race gray clouds
whipped in lightning streaks
candle-smoky clouds,
timers light the streets with lamps
sizzling in fresh rain
it's time my neighbor
walks to work, construction
stops across the street
she's left the lobby
dodging high-rise run-offs, drains,
and piped in drizzles
six stories above
her, we're disengaged as two,
frail, neighborly bursts
pierced rain seems to wane
her glance up, glanced off walls,
dropping floor to floor
a walled-in pipe thumps
still, my elevated wall
faces cement trucks
mannequin hard hats
switch off a rotating tank
and wolf-whistle her,
my draped petrichor,
billows stirred up what it can
of bug spray's ledge dust
Copyright © Barthwell Farmer | Year Posted 2022
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Details |
Barthwell Farmer Poem
One eye opens quicker than the other, so cute,
but who'll spearhead you home, me or the Neanderthal
host? Party goers head for the exit.
I seem to have sat down on a preset remote;
your laugh echoes the empty house mute.
White rain is a flat-screen,
crystalline-chilled, melting pixels.
Your other eye, I swear, winks at the storm.
A breaker, somewhere, thumbs a ride to the red zone.
Shadowy reflections of his indoor lighting
vanish from his TV
and abandon the glass of his aquarium.
Goldfish swim undisturbed
above the sediment of jagged, tiny stepping stones,
footholds for drunks to surface when bubbly
as with our host, brushing 'gainst you.
He toggles your dress by its fished out price
tag. Not my place to scan,
I blink like a readjusted lens off focus.
He sets us both out on the porch;
he's done with milking you to compliment him.
We're Banner milk bottles, side by side on the stairs.
Rain pelts milk-shiny, glassy sides. You shiver instead of going
numb and bottled up in reflections
Copyright © Barthwell Farmer | Year Posted 2021
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Barthwell Farmer Poem
Monochrome winds fantail snowdrifts.
Fleck-churned sparks maw feathery flights
and a howling backdraft
spikes matted fur.
Pawing winds spring traps clenched,
injurious icicled haunches hollowed.
A smothering whiteness whistles
through yellow teeth, a smoldering
witness from snow that isn't snow,
(one homeless person's jaw drops, he looks up,)
I wolf down yogurt that drips off the plastic sides,
whitening the Los Angeles sunshine
where some homeless rest on the reflective sidewalk,
all but one, the nimbus of his mouth quakes.
Copyright © Barthwell Farmer | Year Posted 2022
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