“Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,   
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”
– Richard Wilbur  {read more here}

Greetings, my squeaky-clean poetical peeps! Welcome to dVerse Poetics! De Jackson, aka WhimsyGizmo here, and today I want to give your muse a little gentle agitation. A little something to put your words into a different spin. Today, I want us to write laundry poems. This can mean anything you want it to: 

• Write about a tryst that starts at the laundromat. 
• Tell us what happens to all those missing socks.
• Air some “dirty laundry.”
• Write a tiny poem that might have been found crumpled in a pocket when sorting the laundry.
• Write a poem full of laundry instructions. How would you wash the moon? A broken heart? Hang a daisy out to dry? 

OR:
If you’re still feeling a little stiff and starched, throw 3 (or more) of these words or phrases into the poem dryer and see what tumbles out: 

fluff & fold
spin cycle 
permanent press 
wash & wear
cycle 
dryer fuzz 
machine wash warm 
tumble dry 
dry flat 
presoak 
wrinkled 
front load
rinse 
fine delicates 
clothes pins
downy
tide 

You might find some further poetical laundry inspiration here: 

https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2014/07/24/top-laundry-poems-giveaway/

https://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/best/laundry

And of course there’s this sing-spiration from Don Henley: 

Whether you go for a long cycle like Ruth Stone…

THINGS I SAY TO MYSELF WHILE HANGING LAUNDRY
by Ruth Stone

If an ant, crossing on the clothesline
from apple tree to apple tree,
would think and think,
it probably could not dream up Albert Einstein.
Or even his sloppy moustache;
or the wrinkled skin bags under his eyes
that puffed out years later,
after he dreamed up that maddening relativity.
Even laundry is three-dimensional.
The ants cross its great fibrous forests
from clothespin to clothespin
carrying the very heart of life in their sacs or mandibles,
the very heart of the universe in their formic acid molecules.
And how refreshing the linens are,
lying in the clean sheets at night,
when you seem to be the only one on the mountain,
and your body feels the smooth touch of the bed
like love against your skin;
and the heavy sac of yourself relaxes into its embrace.
When you turn out the light,
you are blind in the dark
as perhaps the ants are blind,
with the same abstract leap out of this limiting dimension.
So that the very curve of light,
as it is pulled in the dimple of space,
is relative to your own blind pathway across the abyss.
And there in the dark is Albert Einstein
with his clever formula that looks like little mandibles
digging tunnels into the earth
and bringing it up, grain by grain,
the crystals of sand exploding
into white-hot radiant turbulence,
smiling at you, his shy bushy smile,
along an imaginary line from here to there.

Or short like me…

spin cycle 
by de jackson 

found 
a dirty note 
in your clean laundry 
in your handwriting
addressed to not me. 

…hang those words out to dry, and then share them with us via Mr. Linky below. And be sure to tumble ’round to the blogs of your fellow prolific poets to snuggle down into all those warm, fresh laundry poems. Ready? Set…
Launder. Rinse. Repeat. 

“Push to start”: