You Can Win a Poetry Contest

#1. Ode to Laundry

The fabric and thread of my life is -- in part,
Defined by the tasks that bring woe to my heart.
My labors, my efforts, my thoughts -- though they wander --
are often directed to things I must launder.

Washing and spotting and sorting and pressing,
folding and hanging gets hugely distressing,
And everyone knows that the job's never done.
When I finish one pile, another's begun.

Apparel and linens and towels do proceed,
In orderly fashion, with clothes that we need,
From hamper to tub to dryer to closet.
Every room has its once-worn and causal deposit.

Pondering laundry products, I find,
Causes such agitation in washtub and mind.
With softening agents and unscented bleach
To bring a spring freshness or whiff of the beach.
Managing lint and static cling trouble,
The wash product ads are a tower of bubble.

Do we dare buck the trend, and face naked derision,
Or keep wearing clothes in a decent decision?
Why toil to grow cotton, or toil raising sheep
To spawn our ultimate laundry day heap...
Of socks and shirts and BVDs?
While I earnestly hope for deliverance from these,
I think of the time when the leaves of the trees
provided our aprons --though not very big,
Adam and Eve did not give a fig.

Buying online, buying online,
Shopping for anything's perfectly fine
Before I shower, before I'm dressed
In 'jamas and robe is always the best.

Shopping for gifts or just for myself
I can find stuff that's not on a shelf
in any store or outlet shop
and once I get started I don't have to stop
for hurting feet or aching back
While trying to handle each bag or sack

In front of the keyboard with full coffee cup
the virtual stores just keep popping up
filling the screen with things I request
(but stuff I don't need is always the best.)

Virtual stores from here and there
invite me to contemplate and compare.
I don't have to drive or ride my bike
It all saves me time, so what's not to like?

I don't need skates or a motor scooter
when I purchase things with my computer.
A shopping cart I don't have to shove,
Makes it so easy, so what's not to love?

It's awfully convenient, but one thing I hate . . .
After I order, I wait . . . and I wait.

You can steal a glance, you can steal a look
or forget to return a library book.

When you happen to notice the boss is away,
you can call in sick on a pleasant spring day.

Or taste the grapes at a grocery store,
(Tell me you've never done that before.)

You can steal a hug; you can steal a kiss,
Steal away with you love, for a moment of bliss.

Steal an idea right out of the air,
as long as you use your original flair.

But when you use words - a word to the wise
Please don't ever plagiarize.

The pollen of trees, beloved by the bees,
Wafts over the fruited plain.
It carries forth thoughts of allergy shots.
It's time for the doctor again.

The powdery cloud keeps me crying out loud,
Sniffling and sneezing and shaken.
It stops up my nose when I'm trying to doze,
When I nod - it is time to awaken.

With seasonal fears and buckets of tears
I'm groggy and drowsy all day.
I'm taking the pills and getting the bills.
I hope my insurance will pay.

(A short epic in the spirit of Jaberwocky, for which you must suspend your disbelief, bewilderment and incredulity. Just read.)

The arnish blayking of the bathe resounded in the Garne.
Its faren tainspag, loudly rose above the pavish starne,
and heening glibly far from knab, the bremsen far and near.
Would gheen and nammer murly more and flee the bobatier.

The bobatier was bobarish, how could it not be, fraith,
His heely hoofdomms dinned the air and made their fears repaith
So globerously large was he, so trasker huge and blain,
They couldn't hope to rophe the slaught and askerize their pain.

With cloudish noss all overlaid a rainly weff imdaired ,
Though doggish pride had held them up and kept them all astaired,
They fled the garne immersed forthwith in faile and steamish tears.
A dooming dash of brightning flash did zern upon their ears

Their Hunsta emerred frotith-like aligt and grabbitaith
Inspeering quarish fortitude and couraging their faith.

He bid them ryne with quare renewed,
A baskishblair and staunch kreefloode,
To rush againt the bobatier and streen the memory and stain
Never to regirsh the Garne or stang the Garne again.

An blanged the bobatier smake thoo his overbeathing franger.
The gartish bobatier lay slain; the Hunsta sherth his blanger.

You may vote for your favorite here. I doesn't really matter which one you vote for because they are all mine, so I will win anyway. I figure this is the only way I could ever win a poetry contest -- Unless all of you vote for carp.

(By the way, the fish drawing is not carp, it is Rainbow Trout, as in its title: "Somewhere over the Rainbow".)

The Prismacolor pencil drawings are mine too, all of them were done quite awhile ago. Please don't complain that they don't go with the poems, because I didn't have time to do new ones. I have too much laundry to do.

Besides, I have no idea what a Bobatier looks like.