Hanky Panky

Nothing, short of nature herself,
     (or Martha Stewart, goddess)
Can beat a plush, white terry cloth.
Best when nine by nine and label free,
     (or maybe ten by ten, no larger)
A smart, tight-hemmed border,
And otherwise unadorned.

Better than a handkerchief,
Though pocketed the same:
Ever ready for instant,
     Size-perfected,
          Unhesitant,
               Material utilization.

Use for wiping drippy noses
     Caused by allergens or
     Sentimental eighties pop.

Use for cleaning table spills
     Caused by carelessness or
     Over-portioned plates.

Use for buffing wax on cars,
     Enhancing shine and sparkle or
     Filling wispy scratches.

Use for hanging on a rack,
     To hide a plaster imperfection or
     Companion for a towel.

Use to make a hand-sized ghost puppet
     To entertain at Halloween-time or
     As impromptu cat toy.

Use for wiping up ejaculate,
     Or two to get the brow and pubes or
     If you’re lucky, three.

Ode to a Towel

Oh damp towel: to thee I sing: the song of a thousand songs.
Crumpled as you are and pre-musty as you may be,
I look on you with a certain longing, for your crunchy form,
For your terry-clothed wrinkles, for your rebirth in the spin cycle.

Oh damp towel: to thee I bring: the hope of a thousand hopes.
Of showers, of tears, of starting anew in the baths of glory.
Sitting cleanly on the floor, taking up the odors of the floor,
Heaped yet supple, ready to polish my missed spots and crevices.

Oh damp towel: from thee I flee: the memory of a thousand baptisms.
The fact of dirt washed away and re-communing on skin and cotton.
Drying and collecting and drying and moistening and drying and drenching,
Upon the face and ass without regard, without deference to the former.

Oh damp towel: for thee I am: the purpose of a thousand purposes.
Unconcerned with clean or not, an instrument alone,
Each use reincarnate: from rack to floor, to pile bottom,
Holding up the Sysyphusian mountain of my discontented future.

Vistas Ex Officio

The view from here is wide, expansive, and true.

Beyond the moldy book-stacked space

     Between my desk and nearby window,

Beyond the sheers, beyond the blinds,

Beyond the valanced, double-panes,

Beyond the shaded casements,

Beyond the tattered porch, beyond the wooden swing,

     Made for two, that hangs precariously from a single-joisted beam,

Beyond the dandelioned, daisied, sandspurred lawn,

Beyond the thorny, coral floribunda rose,

     That I planted for my beau a decade back,

Beyond the crooked, brick-lined road,

Beyond the oak they say some great grandfather’s father

     Planted as a boy,

Beyond the city park where youngish men are smooching

     Youngish girls beneath an ecsatic kite,

Beyond the rippled, glassy lake where cirrus clouds scoot by reflected,

     Beyond the mottled ducks’ nests on its far, cattailed shore,

Beyond my nearest neighbor, there,

     Who’s name I’ve never learned

     Nor cared to,

Beyond that bulky steel, yet nimble raincloud,

     Bravely obscuring the gloaming sun,

     In an otherwise pinking sky,

Beyond the spot where bitsy, soaring eagles disappear,

Beyond these trifles that block the view from here,

     The view from here is wide, expansive, and true.