"recycling" poems
Even sunflowers need the rain to grow
Like recycling scar tissue you refuse to show
Like holding the words to a cookbook containing the recipe for disaster
Like the blood of an open wound placed by the whip of an unruly master
Even sunflowers need the rain to grow
Like when you finally learn the meaning of you reap what you sow
Like a magnificent sand castle washed away by the sea
All the sand becomes one and denies the right to be free
Even sunflowers need the rain to grow
Like the sting from the phrase I told you so
Like a deer caught in headlights frozen dead in it's tracks
Like gazing the stars if we could just climb the smoke stacks
Even sunflowers need the rain to grow
Like excluding truth from what you think you know
Like playing life in a game of poker, and the *** is everything but cheap
Karma has the high hand, face up, read'em and weep
Even sunflowers need the rain to grow
Like running through red lights because all you want is to go
Like a jack of all trades who can't fix his own heart
Like the tortoise that took off before the race even start
Even sunflowers need the rain to grow
Like a hundred oars and no arms to row
Nov 4, 2010
Nov 4, 2010 at 8:31 AM UTC
Establish a research and development facility tasked with recycling 100,000 commonly used household goods or packaged products back into the original base material needed to remake it into new product packaging. Pass legislation requiring all companies selling products with packaging to buy their source materials from a registered public-private venture allowing any firm willing to participate to do so. Companies must then manufacture packaging locally using source materials supplied by one of the public-private companies. Companies will also be required to hire locally using a diversity and economic income model incorporating or locating the participating companies in the poorest rural counties in the state.
Society grows great when Old Men plant trees. -Socrates
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 7:46 PM UTC
The bright blue bottle hit me like a hint of death
on the breath of Spring.
I imagined it being tossed out a truck window
by underage teens fancying themselves clever
and mature and immortal
as if the earth had willed upon them
that her stolen treasure, Aluminum,
be returned or she’d cause their truck keys
disappear for all eternity.
I picked up the blue bottle
tried to feel resurrection
in a recycling sort of way
felt instead only the hollow emptiness
of mindless eternal reincarnation.
Winter had been long this year and lately
I fantasized resurrection more than usual
at a field where I stopped to listen to meadowlark and field sparrow calling for mates or alerting everyone to the sin of the blue bottle.
Several deer grazed the unseen first greens of Spring near skunk cabbage and coltsfoot.
At a small stream, I cupped my hand into the icy fast water and raised it to my lips, then splashed my face, then splashed some more, more,
then knelt, both knees at the streambed and submersed my face and head,
in self-inflicted baptism
for my own blue bottle sins,
opened my eyes, exhaled all my blue bubbles, for the longest of repentant moments,
pulled out of the water
gasping the holy Spring air
for dear life
and thereafter walked each step
in the garden of resurrection.
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 9:25 PM UTC
Remember,
the best things in life are free
...plus tax
...license
...and recycling fee
Nov 13, 2019
Nov 13, 2019 at 5:58 PM UTC
Once it was garbage, refuse, trash.
A jumble of foul-smelling detritus hauled to the curb
And removed by sinewy men
Contributing a harder day's work
Than anyone else in the city.
Our energy now removes its entropy.
Sorted and classified into coloured bins,
We add order to our rejected matter.
Specialized trucks arrive to collect
The date-synchronized bins
Emptying them into functionally compatible mechanisms.
Most desolate is the black box of paper and cardboard.
Brochures and flyers, old magazines and letters.
Annual reports and cereal boxes.
Once these were enameled with crafted sentences,
Painstakingly typed, edited and debated,
On the monitors of copywriters.
Now they are just millions of words printed on flattened fibre substrates,
Jumbled into the bruised and scarred black box,
Entering into the recycling stream.
The nouns and adjectives,
Prepositions and gerunds,
All jumble together.
Fragments of precisely-crafted sentences and paragraphs
Are gradually broken, shredded and pulped.
Incomplete thoughts, broken phrases
Like those of a rejected stranger
In an lonely, unknown country.
Then words without context.
Then just disparate letters
Are all that remain.
Their M ea N inG
G r a Du all y
is re mov
e d
.
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 10:26 AM UTC
I.
“No doubt they’ll sing in tune after the Revolution.”
-Kamarovsky, Doctor Zhivago (film)
Everyone seems to clench his fist these days
In solidarity with ephemera
While setting fire to green recycling bins
Hurling someone else’s bicycle through a window
Armed with their undergraduate degrees
The comrades liberate a coffee shop
Wifi-ing the revolution of the day
Empowerment by beating love to death
Loudsplaining authentic victimization
Posing for selfies with a stolen ‘phone
II.
Their inhumanity seemed a marvel of class-consciousness, their barbarism a model of proletarian firmness…
-Doctor Zhivago, p. 349
Everyone seems to clutch his flag these days
In solidarity with a past that wasn’t
While setting fire to misspelled cardboard signs
Hurling someone else’s beer into a crowd
Armed with their lurid Confederate tats
The Something.Right liberate a dumpster
Bull-horning the counter-revolution
Empowerment by beating love to death
Bellowing their Reconquista of stench
Posing behind their cheap gas station shades
III.
“I used to admire your poetry...I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections... it's suddenly trivial now. You don't agree; you're wrong. The personal life is dead…”
-Strelnikov to Yuri, Doctor Zhivago (film)
Some few embrace civilization these days
In solidarity with humanity
While lighting one small candle as a votive
Whispering an Ave into the Light
Armed with wonder through pen and flute and brush
Recusants choose the liberation given
In singing of the eternal verities
Self-empowerment happily denied
With love, with poetry, music, and art
Celebrating life on this summer day
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 5:09 PM UTC
Little bits of litter blowing everywhere,
Is it that we are carless? Or maybe we don’t care.
Bags and bottles ******* of every kind,
A simple picnic our ******* left behind.
Bottles of all sizes floating on the pond,
If left on the beach will travel far beyond.
Polystyrene boxes used for burgers or chips,
Are float on our ponds like little litter ships.
But worst of all the dreaded carrier bag,
Hang from wires and trees like a kind of flag.
Just to make sure we spread it far and wide,
Cars are used to carry debris to the countryside.
Now that we have spread it from coast to coast,
We are a famous nation because we litter most.
Fish and chips were sold wrapped in newspaper,
You could say part of a natural recycling scheme.
Pop was bought in bottles with a paid deposit,
Kiddies for pocket money collected to redeem.
Litter is not pretty it will not go away,
Soon we will have nowhere clean to play.
Maybe if we learn to take our litter home again,
We would see the trees and flowers,
Down our English country lane.
Jul 26, 2011
Jul 26, 2011 at 12:25 AM UTC
I came along to your garden, to see your chillies growing
Unaware of what laid in wait, or what was really showing
There stood a glass a lidded drink, familiarity of knowing
If that's what I think it is, I don't want it overflowing
Do my eyes forsake me, is that a fluid from the body
Is that froth of a good beer, or from a head that's shoddy
Does it look like what it is, a very dodgy toddy!
Ghoulish drinks will turn you green, like Goblins are in Noddy
What the hell you thinking off, with water that's distilled
It smells like the local gents, so it should not be spilled
I don't mind a special brew, but this time I'm not thrilled
Unusual cocktails are okay, but not ones you have filled
Aren't beverages supposed to be, refreshing and thirst quenching ?
You say that it's good to drink, but really it's gut wrenching
An endless supply you may have, but it should be toilet drenching
Don't ever make a wankers drink, by using a fist clenching
You wouldn't want this drink on tap, it defies imagination
It's just the same as a lady, drinking her own ************
It maybe the water of life, but it's just urination
Aqua vitae is not my idea, of a real drink designation
Even just the thought of it, makes me feel sick and hazy
To drink a glass of this stuff, you must be ******* crazy
Well talk about recycling, or are you just bog lazy
Is Harvey Denton related, or do you live in Royston Vasey
People like to drink sometimes, is there something I have missed
You seem to have your own ideas, but with a certain twist
A brand new meaning you have brought, to getting yourself ******
Golden showers are one thing, but that's when your sexually kissed
There's one thing I'd like to know, so what do you say
Why do you think that drinking **** will keep the germs away
It cant be very good for you, it's an inside body spray
Your just drinking toilet water, hay Jay are you ****** today ?
Oct 25, 2018
Oct 25, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
This is how far it goes
Now that your smile causes me pain
How you walk past me makes me envious.
Hope my throat won’t suffer from goiter
Since saliva can’t flow like it used to
You surely know how to hurt me
Without even a single touch
Modeling in my face without even a simple wave
It’s the same place we live
But different lifestyles
Am high on memories, of that one day
When you said the words I keep recycling in my brain
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 7:54 AM UTC
you had birds in your mouth and sunlight dripping from your eyelashes.
i promised i wouldn't speak if you wouldn't change faces twice an hour.
we made conversation under a tree and sleep-walked through your kitchen.
i couldn't stare for your poetry disguised as fingers, always moved your hands.
i opened your window and slid to the street, took a walk with the recycling.
my hands looked tired the next morning, and you wouldn't take no.
when the lights fell asleep, we ran for the boats and slipped into the water.
the moon smiled and pulled us apart, i never matched your shoes again.
Oct 28, 2010
Oct 28, 2010 at 8:28 PM UTC
the people vs. my every waking moment
me, for every heart I've stolen
the lost light given to homework
an idea embedded that our souls are
search machine engines
are we waking, are you my dreams
the people vs. contemporary art of all periods
angrier and more painful hearts
suicide as a solution
recycling factitious pollution
no one says a thing about ideas repurposed
the people vs. intelligence
truth
passion
anything other than money as a practice
Aug 7, 2017
Aug 7, 2017 at 6:29 PM UTC
I've learned to hate uncertainty.
Changes that come cursedly unannounced.
The future glass is half empty, and leaking.
God, Luck, and the Fates have lost my file.
Tossed by mistake to the recycling bin,
to fend for itself.
Time is the only one that plods along,
dragging moment after moment
to the slaughter, though they shriek
never taking a day off.
Death is the only certainty
and even he
works by spontaneity.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 10:54 PM UTC
it’s confusing to me
and maybe this is where
the grooming,
psychological abusing
comes from.
i’m used and discarded,
tossed into the recycling bin
until i’m reused again.
and again.
every time making me
a little weaker
than the time before.
a little less able to refuse.
a little easier to bend,
to break.
the lack of permanency
in the place i long for,
the place in which
i never got to stay for long,
only to be hauled away and
returned upon further notice.
Mar 31, 2022
Mar 31, 2022 at 7:00 AM UTC
The bonfire was loaded
With exiting tales
Our forerunners legendary
Exploit's these daggers
Cut deep trenches in
Our mindseye we felt
Like the next generation
Of wrath true tales from
A culture of devil worshippers
Yet the tongue's wielding
The blade was non the wiser
Our innate minds chewd
Every word our lives Satan's
Recycling bin two five ten
Deaths and many generations
After we now realised that
We have to cut out the blade
From these forked tongued
Folk tales that whispers filth
Unto the unsuspecting ears
Of our beautiful children
Heroism emenating from
The subculture of criminality
And gangsterism must no
Longer be tolerated it have savaged
The Innocence of young lives
For far too long
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 4:45 PM UTC
city in the shadow of a mountain
like denver on vacation
shady and deep
flowing down like the river
seeking centre
houses cling to the crags like barnacles
inverted ship cavity
jutting out of the rainforest
paradise of truants and travellers
eternally in transit to islands and misfit fringes, cold floors and warm couches
and displaced ***** enthusiasts
sailors without floatation
treading land and bills and PTA meetings
cast off travellers on their way to golden gates or northern lights
rivers under troubled bridges
fish suffocating underwater
living on the refuse of the nuclear generation
transmuting the lead into sustainable energy
recycling the atmosphere into breathable air
apathetic anarchists return from extremity
living on the dole
or working for the man
we are building something greater than this
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 12:31 PM UTC
It's not the time of dandelions;
they've all been blown away;
those fragile fragments now remind
the shooting stars of day.
And though the seedlings blown away seem gone;
they float as static light and air along
as pieces of a never ending earth –
a universe recycling its dearth.
All matter is
and always is.
A dandelion
may be his
smile. And think – drink water from your sink –
it may be reimagined stars you drink.
Aug 7, 2012
Aug 7, 2012 at 1:11 AM UTC
No one's ever died.
Everyone keeps living
and breathing
the same air.
No one's ever died before.
We just keep on recycling
their breaths.
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 8:03 AM UTC
JB was on my mind
Too many times
Everything he ever talked about
Became my walk my talk
My singing and shouts
I knew from the start that it would have an end.
I can't ever seem to get used to these new beginnings.
I fell into manipulation
I'm recovering
Trying and recycling...
Recovering
My old and new beliefs
The old and new me
Trying to become
What I've always
Been
Seeker of light
Prayer of health
Child of God
Teacher
People pleaser
_____
He she won't be ANY GOD TO ME
I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING ANYMORE
HELP ME
LORD HELP ME
LORD HELP ME
Father Father help me
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 3:49 PM UTC
When I walked in to biology class a couple days back,
I found a gum wrapper
sitting on my desk.
It was torn in half, with the remaining piece folded
right side over left.
It became apparent that someone had left it there,
deeming it unimportant.
As I sat there in biology class, bored as hell,
I began to twirl that little piece of paper
between my fingers.
All of the Wrigley's, printed across the outside,
became acquainted with the space between
my thumb and forefinger.
But when the wrapper fell from my grasp
and on to the floor, I realized
how easy it was
to let it.
Hours could pass, even days,
and no one would bother to look
at the crumpled piece of paper
sitting on the floor.
When I extended my foot to guide it
back within my reach, it came to me
how appealing the green box of recycling
looked too.
Here was a gum wrapper, an inanimate object
of no apparent value, forgotten by a student.
But it was not the breaking of the no gum rule
where things went wrong.
The real prize, most would argue,
was within the wrapper.
The rest should be trash.
But, despite the laws of recycling,
the wrapper was left here,
sitting on my desk,
in biology class.
I decided to pick it up.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 1:16 AM UTC
Is the only way through
situations the passage inside?
Detach my spirit and hover
from above at
the height of light
Where should I transfer
my trash?
the recycling box
doesn't seem half bad
but it requires sorting
what goes where
and eventually
it will transmogrify
and come back in the form
of a coffee cup sipping'
on my new lovers eyes
that I will of course,
repeat the pattern
of romantic disaster
and time bombs
of imminent arrival
holding out...
how long could one stifle
a much needed expression
that was sublimated
under the pretext
of ultimatum
do or die
love me or not
understand or dissipate
commit or let go
for as long as the rest
of remembrance
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 7:50 PM UTC
In the brooding light, you were formed.
You were born in clouds and dust, and you grew up in the luminous sky.
You were scattered throughout the different parts of the galaxy.
You are trillions of miles away,
yet still visible to the naked eye.
As the star gradually evolves and forms
into different entities,
it is either a planet, an asteroid, or a nebula —
or even just a speck of dust and never formed.
It is also the start of your
long, deep slumber.
While in the intergalactic space in your eyes,
gravity pulls back the gas and forms another one. And the galaxy is bathed in gas.
While you were out of breath, I talked to you.
So you can hear your friend in the dark.
Your death is also the birth of another celestial space.
Between the illustrious energy and gravity's back-and-forth,
recycling gases and turning them into a new form of galaxy,
it is like the way you breathe in and out —
while your eyes are closed.
Did you wear an evening gown?
While the patients here wear something ridiculous, you can't stand it.
So you wore a red dress in your deep, restless sleep.
Tonight, I looked over the moon and remembered you.
They called upon the universe and they gave you space.
You were there, starlike.
I gave you one last message before I turned my back.
I will always put my faith in the phenomenon of celestial space.
Then you held my hand, so slow and weak.
You told me, and I smiled, "In the chaos of everything, I heard you."
And another star exploded, but you lived.
Mar 25, 2022
Mar 25, 2022 at 2:52 AM UTC
second sight alternate mind
sliding down the slippery slope
chasing a rabbit into fantasyland
the world is the same but changed
this drink is full of laughter
this drink makes everything strange
and why am I here you may ask
as I refill my already refilled glass
to find myself of course
I've looked everywhere else
and this is the only place I exist
at the bottom of a bottle
recycling the abyss
I am alive tingling inside
and I know he is waiting
on the hangover side, but
I'll let him deal with it **** it up
while I just crawl away to Hyde
until he is again enticed
to walk away from his Jekyllite life
we're all inmates so what's your poison
prisoners here in alcoholism
Jan 16, 2022
Jan 16, 2022 at 8:47 AM UTC
He builds robots
with his bare hands.
He takes the wrenches
and the electronics
and the nuts and bolts
and makes out of nothing
Something.
And even though I don’t even know him.
I think I may love him a bit.
I think about
How he puts things together that weren’t connected ever before.
Fixing that which is broken
Or unmade
Or seemingly unfixable.
And proving the world wrong when this man-made machine
is just as alive as the rest of us.
The discarded
are made
into something with a renewed sense of purpose.
Proving recycling as a totally viable concept
[and not just a fad hippies whine about]
Right before your very eyes.
And as I watch him explain
High level mechanics
to the English majors like me,
I think about my broken heart
and the inability to truly love anyone in the last five years of my life
And I think
Maybe
There’s someone out there
Who can finally fix that.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 9:39 PM UTC
You can recycle a
Lot of things like
Papers and cans
And boxes can be
Recycling
When you recycle
You can fun and
Makes a games out of
Recycling
So you kids recycle
That a young age and
If you make it fun they
Love to recycle and
They will continue to
Recycling
In their adulthood
And they also teach
Their kids too recycle
And to save the only
Planet earth we have
To live on and we all
Share it so if we all
Do are part we can
Save it planet for the
Future kids and make
The air saver to breathe
In fresh air and have not
Worry about get
sick from the air
Recycling
© Amanda Kay Hill
2/5/17
Feb 9, 2017
Feb 9, 2017 at 1:51 AM UTC
the tick in the clock
the chatter of an ignition
dishes clanking
Mr. Everywhere
nowhere to be seen
the lungs don't show the lifetime spent escaping
times are cold
but it's too hot in the kitchen
make me a transient drifter
with a handkerchief on a stick
eating an apple
in a boxcar making it's way through cold night
make me disappear a wrangler
an outlaw
delete my typos
and move me to the recycling bin
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 10:15 PM UTC