Poetry is not Lysol Home Disinfectant.
ACTIVE INGREDIENTS:
Alkyl (50% C14 40% C12 10% C16)
dimethyl benzyl ammonium saccharinate ... .10%
Ethanol......................................................... 58%
OTHER INGREDIENTS: ............................. 41.90%
TOTAL:......................................................... 100%
What?
Half of what makes up this product is another ingredient?
But it is not active?
What is it?
Thank you for adding them up for me Lysol bottle.
My Lysol is a Murder.
KILLS VIRUSES
KILLS BACTERIA
KILLS MOLD & MILDEW.
What beautiful alliteration Lysol, maybe you are a poem after all.
My Lysol carries the scent of an Early Morning Breeze at a chemical plant.
Which each spray my sensitive noses wafts in a scent that leaves me nostalgic.
It brings me to a place where I would wake up, in the Early Morning, and stick my head out the window to catch the cleansing Breeze.
The Breeze like a power-washer coming through to freshen and clean everything.
Oh no. That was not a freshening power-washer.
That was a power-washer that KILLS.
It is a murderer.
A Breeze that takes your breath away. Essentually. It drowns you.
Watch out Staphyloccocus aureus you are no match for my Early Morning Breeze.
You better hide Enterobacter aerogenes on hard non-porous surface. Because 99.9% of you are goners. Total. Goners.
Oh you pleasently colored can. You remind me of the Crayola, Purple Mountain Magesty. It really is my favorite crayon, such a lovely shade of purple.
Purple.
Like a bruise.
Or a dead body.
Laying with a toe tag in the morgue.
Lysol reminds me of garbage cans. That is where my mom used to spray it as a child.
This giant blue, sometimes brown, slightly rusted home for waste, is not poetry.
This filthy vermin infested garbage receptacle. Oh no.
I was taking my trash out one day. I flung it high and heavy over the metal walls.
Clank, crash, rustle, break, OW.
“Hey watch where your throwing that.”
“Oh I’m sorry.”
And that is when I met him.
The poet that lived in my dumpster.
I’ve seen him often collecting cans and sorting recyclbles.
Every homeless man has a story.
Usually, they lose their house in a bank foreclosure.
They gamble their lives away on a Harrah’s boat.
They drink their lives away thanks largely impart to Heather who hands him another glass, divorce papers, another bottle, another, a DUI.
Losers.
Thats who live in the dumpsters.
Those, who have lost.
Thats what I thought of the poet in my dumpster when I met him. I thought he was a loser.
Hes cleverly obvious and wears small round eyeglasses. Hes nose slopes like a slide at a summer fair and if his eyeglass happen to enjoy the ride they never make it past his colar bone where they are collected safely. Because of his eye glass catchers, that form a nice bifocal necklace. It will never be part of the Tiffany’s collection, but it is nice, for a poet.
I sat there for a minute unsure of how to respond to this barbaric being, so gentle and diligent in his search for buried treasure. Then, he climbed out. Two bags in his hands.
He spotted something shiny. He took a few step towards the mystical metal and bent down close to examine it. A penny. Tails side up.
I watch him as he lifts the penny, flips it over, and stands again.
He turns to me and says, “its your lucky day” and shifts his eyes to Lincoln’s profile that resides cordially on a copper, and then he looks back at me.
Money.
When I think of things that are dirty. Just down right filthy. Full of germs not visible to the human eye. I think of currency.
Touch. Touch. Touch. Tap. Tell. Pass. Borrow. Play.
Money.
From the bank teller, to the client. To the woman in the drive through at McDonalds. Given as change to the car behind her. An allowance for her 10 year old son. To George at the candy story down the block for teeth rotting treats. To the 14 year employee who works under the table. To the senior who bought him cigarettes. To dealer who gave him cocaine. To the prostitute for her services. To the clinic for her screening. And back to the bank.
Filthy money is.
Money is poetry.
Poetry is the story that money tells through its travels.
Its what everyone notices but no one watches.
Its blue.
Poetry is a small child. Observant. Eager.
There are a few children I can say I’m incredibly fond of. Bradley, and Anthony. They are twins I nanny for while their parents work their average jobs.
They are very curious and funny in the way they view the world.
Its big. Its kind. Its full of fun and answers.
As we are driving down a country road they notice a horse, standing with a cow and some other live stock.
The horse is lonely claims the boys.
Horses are not friends with cows, or ducks.
Horses, are friends with horses.
There are no other horses for this horse to play with.
He has no friends.
This horse is so sad.
He, is lonely.
I wish I could be friends with him.
I wish I could be a horse.
That, is poetry. The working observation of four-year-old twins.
Children are the best poets.
They dont process anything.
They observe, and then report.
There is no other influence except their tiny frame of reference.
Innocent.
Ignorant.
Beautiful none the less.
Poetry is not Lysol Home Disinfectant.
It does not KILL or contain OTHER INGREDIENTS.
Or does it?
My Lysol Home Disinfectant does bring up a great point.
It contains this they are not simply defined.
It gives an outline.
But not instructions.
My Lysol is colorful and vibrant.
It contains imagery, alliteration.
It kills and it saves lives.
It makes things fresh, and new again.
It makes you look at things differently.
Its a perfume that Whitman smells.
It is a line of a patriotic song.
Yes. It certainly is a poem. All of the things add to 100%. Even if they are other, and you dont quite know what they are. Maybe you cannot pronounce it. Or define it. But it serves a purpose. Isn’t that just what a poem does. I certainly believe so. It notices something in the world and magnifies it. Like an amoeba.
Swim swim amoeba. You lucky .01% that survived the death of your viral bacteria roommates. They died a painful chemic death. They are in a better place now. A place with white flowers that smells lovely. Like a breeze, in the early morning.
CARYN L BEGESCHKE
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