Wash My Mouth Out With Soap
June 13 2022
The words you can't say on TV.
The bad words they beep
or write like this #$%@!!&.
Natural bodily functions
bashful plumbing
cursing mothers.
4-letter words,
some with more.
But we can read lips.
Enjoy the thrill
of the sacrilegious
transgressive
forbidden.
Used casually
they would lose their special power.
Word inflation
would debase them,
we would have to invent more.
How easy to scoff
at these social conventions
and arbitrary distinctions.
But when the hammer hits your hand
the piano plummets to earth
how handy to let slip
a good Anglo Saxon expletive.
How satisfying
the lapse of etiquette
and explosive release.
Small children delight
in the power of these words,
old men
express their disillusion.
Construction sites are filled
with wisecracks and curses.
My father rarely swore.
But when he did
everything stopped
jaws dropped
heads turned.
No poet
ever commanded language like this.
Who knew
he had it in him?
I swear more.
Not drunken sailor blue streaks
but more than he'd approve of.
No beeps.
No need
to read my lips.
No slip of the tongue
or phony primness.
He would wash out my mouth, if he were here.
Or would have, back then.
Now, I can just imagine
the disappointed look
and sigh of resignation.
As if to say
need for such words
in polite conversation,
grown-up, or not.
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