With the gadgets and the glop,
Toiling all the afternoon
To turn potatoes into shoes.
His coffee's laced with paint
All the better to enable
Him to fix his extra eye
Which had fallen on the table.
He doesn't eat his sandwich
Kindly placed at his right hand.
When you ask him what he's doing,
He says, "you wouldn't understand."
Electric charges bring the largest cat you've ever seen
Back from the brink to have a drink of flaming kerosene.
Then it eats some rotten meat and gaks up on the floor...
When daddy takes its heart for parts, it will not gak no more.
The missing neighbor
Is used for labor--
He claps on and claps off.
The answering machine
Eats aubergines
But has a nasty cough.
There are nails in a jar, petroleum and tar,
And little screws rolling loose;
Elbow joints and old toast points
Plus a railroad train caboose.
Daddy's in his shop
Of a Sunday afternoon,
He doesn't give a shit about the grandkids;
He pees in a can,
Sleeps in a sedan,
And lines his hat with old can lids.
_________
Fireblossom does not understand "puttering."
No cats were harmed in the writing of this poem.
Photograph by Rob Hanson for One Shoot Sunday.
So, is THAT what the grown-ups told you when they didn't want to be bothered? That explains so much!
ReplyDeleteI ask myself, what is Daddy doing in his shop? And I think the answer is "he's doing."
ReplyDeleteI read this three times, and each time I become more convinced that you've used the photograph to describe distance and isolation. Well done.
LOL this is hilariously funny, and then not. It wraps up the entire world's knowing of 'puttering', the good can be seen in there with the bad--at least for me.
ReplyDeleteHas me thinking of a story about the man who has to always imagine everything in the car with his wife, sorry cannot recall in this moment his name.
Who knows what goes on inside the minds of men?... of women as well :)
ReplyDeleteSuch a story - humurous and tragic at the same time :)
ReplyDeleteNo cats were harmed but alot of helpless lids got exposed to lice and such...
ReplyDeleteGosh Shay ( word smith extr ordinaire) can you save some words for me...
You should publish your work. It's amazing.
ReplyDeleteRhyming eggplant with machines? When you use a rhyme scheme with your poems, the cleverness of your word choices makes me scream! (Sorry...I could not resist.)
ReplyDeletedaddy's got a little frankenstein going on...can he program the neighbor to cut my grass...but only if daddy let little hands help they might actually have a relationship
ReplyDeleteAnswering machines eating aubergines and coffee laced with paint - not sure where your head is at but I like it very much !! :) Steve
ReplyDeleteEat yer heart out, Stephen King. Obviously there is a severe mental disorder at work here(we won't specify exactly where) which leads to can-peeing and aubergine eating--and what else could you possibly do with a neighbor? The cat will get him in the end though--they always do.
ReplyDeleteThis is so clever, and so much fun to read. The answering machine eating aubergines - too funny. I love it.
ReplyDeleteYou made this nutty old man seem both beautiful and twisted—the flow is impeccable with very complex rhymes. Damn.
ReplyDeleteI found this sad ....well written as always!
ReplyDeleteAgain you describe in such a beautiful way the distance between a parent and a child. Lonely but not alone.
ReplyDeleteThis is pure inspiration and lots of fun-- I love especially--
ReplyDeleteThere are nails in a jar, petroleum and tar,
And little screws rolling loose;
Elbow joints and old toast points
Plus a railroad train caboose.
one word...frankenstien,frankenstein aw hell you know what i mean!lol i could feel the emotions of the uncaring creator.very nice.
ReplyDelete"Now what's that sound from under the door?
ReplyDeleteHe's pounding nails into a hardwood floor
And I swear to god I heard someone moaning low
And I keep seeing the blue light of a T.V. show
He has a router and a table saw
And you won't believe what Mr. Sticha saw
There's poison underneath the sink of course
But there's also enough formaldehyde to choke a horse
What's he building in there?
What the hell is he building in there?
I heard he has an ex-wife in some place called Mayors Income, Tennessee
And he used to have a consulting business in Indonesia
But what is he building in there?
What the hell is building in there?"
-Tom Waits : What's He Building?
with your patented turns of words & foreboding-
ReplyDeleteAloha from Waikiki :)
Comfort Spiral
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Hedgewitch is on to something. I think it's Stephen King meets Dr. Seuss. Could anything be cooler than that?
ReplyDelete