Take me somewhere
Where I can fold your clothes
And sing a song for you

If I could know
The sorrows and dreams
that bring you to your knees

I would sit back
Take your stack
And fold it right down the middle

It's all I could do for you
Put a crease
In your sad dreams

A mom is here
Doing laundry
I ought to help
Just here waiting
Till' she's finished
Washing and operating
The Mecin cuci
Or so-called washing machine

She put the clothes
Around it, one by one
She pour it
Until it's finished
Another batch is waiting,

Next, she hang it on
A wire line, some on
A plastic array
Of divided spaces

Until it dries by the suns heat
Overtime, now it's time
To collect it
Yes, It's our job to fold it and
Order 'em in our
Respective cabinets

Until another time,
Another day of washing
Laundry

5:00am and folding laundry

when the inspiration tank is yellow lit,
and E stands for more than empty,
but evacuation,
try this remedy,
a first generation family secret!

fold the laundry.
all kinds.
his n' hers,
blacks n' whites
really clean and

and the kind that never get clean,
no matter how much d e t e r-g e n t
you use, how oft you wash 'em...

Instructions:

1. fold only when wearing t- shirt, tank top, briefs (optional)
2. put on Pandora 60's rock n ' roll (folk rock - highly recommend Runaround Sue by Dion and the Belmonts, The Wedding Song, The House of the Rising Sun)
3. dance, shake, improve your moves when nobody's looking
3a. control yourself, if you must sing, at the top of your lungs is not acceptable.
If alone skip, skip to no. 5
4. every third piece give a sniff, get high on
fresh starts, clean notions, the idea that all can be washed away
4a. Every third piece of hers give an extra sniff,
so you can know why love keeps you alive
5. if you have to sing, then only loud is acceptable
(***** the others, you're doing the folding, they're sleep-dreaming)
6. drink lots of water
7. have pen + paper handy cause ain't no doubt
the poet puppet muse masters gonna smack you down
when folding sheets alone.
8. finish the write and post it ASAP
9. always leave the single socks on top of the dryer,
a prayer to the laundry gods for the
safe return of their better halves
10. finish
11. If done correctly, you need to shower (wash hair!)
12, around 6:00am, all scrubbed and clean,
fold yourself back into her arms. Snuggle, spoon.
13. when she mumbles you smell clean, you reply,
                                  "been folding laundry, writing poetry,
                                   and the clean smell done fell on me"
14. if alone, despair not, read this poem and know we are together
15. believe this day is full of possibilities,
write me a poem, put the load right on me

there are stains that cannot be removed,
deterred by this gent, and his a-gents,
they are history, treat'em with respect
and not more
deter-gent

every poem must end,
so when the folding is done,
whisper:

*the day ahead is full of possibilities
like the pleasured reinvigorating of my clothes,
once happy soiled, now happy cleansed,
so I possess an excuse, a reason,
a rationale for living
to fold laundry again!

I dumped my laundry
On the ground
Hoping it would allow me
To feel motivated

Motivated to move
To clean to work
But all it did
Was sit on my floor

I sat with it too
Staring at the pile.
Looking for the answers
Written in my shirts

I live in the neat and clean
Hung up shirts and freshly folded laundry
Sunlight peeking through the white curtains
keeping my mind at ease.

I am busy
rushing from spot to spot
reading, writing, and completing tasks.
It keeps my days full.

I am stressed
however, unlike the dark summer hours
I get to live with the stress in the beautiful autumn leaves.
I am stressed but in different ways.

I am lonely
but only in the unattainable love
that I romanticize, I am alone but due to my faults.
I am lonely but In different ways now.

I am so very weird
My moods, switching from one extreme to the other
finding a balance is extremely troublesome.
But people don’t seem to notice.
I am so very weird, but it seems only to me.

Or maybe I am not
Maybe they all see
I wonder if when they look at me...
Am I pitied? Or am I loved?

The days keep passing by
season to season, happy to sad
lonely to depressed back to happy
and I wonder where I’ll end up when the days stop.

i see my life hung out to dry
my memories slowly falling to the ground
my mind losing all colour
leaving behind a shell of the person i once was
slowly i shrink

When words form
but the voice is muted,
strings of sentences -
like loose lengths of yarn,
just swimming...
swirling in the currents
of the wash.

They meet,
they connect,
they get tangled up
with each other.

What had before made sense
now swells larger,
more intricate,
more tiresome.

It all converges
into a ******
as the spin cycle ends.

What’ll emerge
is a convoluted mess.



I’m a mess.

And then,
I get hung out to dry.

Tiny tawny girl next door,
Watch you scrub your kitchen floor.
Doggie down there, on all four:
I can’t wait ‘til you spill some more.

Laundry day, your fragrance drifts
Through my screen: My spirit lifts.
Subtle scents, your careless gifts,
And through each one, my keen nose sifts.

Singing, humming, filled with glee:
You wash your dishes, dutifully.
I hear you, though I cannot see,
How drippy-wet and wonderfully?

Accomp’nied by Spanish guitar,
This summer day, you wash your car.
Flamenco skirt, my jaw ajar,
On tippy-toes, you’ve stretched too far!

Then one day, from the box you came,
Bearing junk mail with my name.
I quickly turned to hide my shame.
You’d caught me staring, just the same.

My name, without lifting her head,
From that misguided missive, read.
Upset?  Not yet.  She smiled, instead,
Then took me by my arm, and said,

“I must confide, my next-door boy,
I play with you: my sweetest toy.
All parts and parcels of my ploy,
I mean to share what you enjoy.

“I scrub the floor where you can see.
I perfume all of my laundry.
I softly sing each melody,
And even dress indecently.

“…But spiders cause me grievous fright!
I have a burned-out ceiling light.
So, if you can and think you might,
Come help me with my chores, tonight.”

©2Dec2017 @DracoTalpus

Thin metal man
     arms  opened to the
sky
wet clothes
       rust his feet.