Washing Machine Blues

my stomach
is a washing machine,
stuffed to capacity with
the dirtiest load of laundry
that never comes clean
no matter how many cycles
it endures in the never ending
hell of 

spin cycle after spin cycle after spin cycle

it makes me nauseous, 

and sometimes i have
to restrain myself from throwing up 
a putrid T-shirt or a filthy 
sock or
two

I've tried all the miracle cleaning
panaceas, when Billy Mays was still alive,
I let his thunderous salesman voice 
brainwash me into giving Oxiclean a
shot, only to walk away dissatisfied
and discontent

tide, shout, spray and wash,
clorox, zout, nature's source,
carbona, wine away

have all failed me too

the grime, the filth and the stains
that cling to my stomach laundry,
like colonies of barnacles on 
oceanside rocks, resist my every attempt
to expunge, i have begun to give up
hope

because,
how do you go about removing filthiness 
that comes
with knowing, (simply knowing) 
that you live in the most opulent country 
in the world, 

that while you sit on
your a*s in front of the television screen
eating your third plate of dinner there are 
children a continent away, a state away,
a town away, down the street, that haven't
had a substantial meal in three days and
would claw out eyes and pull teeth
just for a forkful

that while you sit bored in a community college 
classroom, on the verge of falling asleep, 
there is man somewhere walking through
Dante's Inferno overtime, daily, nightly
for pennies in some shithole factory because
he was never given the opportunity for an
education, and it now hangs like a dead
albatross around his neck

that while you drive the streets aimlessly
with your friends on a Friday night, listening 
to the musical
anthems you all know and love, in a car
you're parents bought you, 
homeless specters
of human beings in London, Paris, 
Rio De Janerio, Bangkok, Tokyo, Khartoum
and a myriad of other cities and towns you've
never heard of, are digging through 
dumpsters and trash heaps, and searching for
bridges to fall asleep under

that while you re-read Orwell's 1984, for the
umpteenth time, alone in your room, there 
are real, living, breathing thought police 
in obscure (and not so obscure) corners of
the globe performing heinous acts on
men and women who's only crime was to think
they deserve freedom and dignity as
a human being

from a T-shirt
from a pair of jeans
from a sweater
from a pair of boxers?

my stomach
is a washing machine,
stuffed to capacity with
the dirtiest load of laundry
that never comes clean

and yours should be too