"trashcan" poems
the wind blows hard tonight
and it's a cold wind
and I think about
the boys on the row.
I hope some of them have a bottle of
red.
it's when you're on the row
that you notice that
everything
is owned
and that there are locks on
everything.
this is the way a democracy
works:
you get what you can,
try to keep that
and add to it
if possible.
this is the way a dictatorship
works too
only they either enslave or
destroy their
derelicts.
we just forgot ours.
in either case
it's a hard
cold
wind.
17.9k
one time when i was eight
i slept over at my friend’s house
and that night we held back
her mom’s hair as she got sick
over a broken heart
into a trashcan at
the foot of her bed
and i didn’t understand
how someone could be so sad
but right now, lying
on the bathroom floor
getting sick over you, i do.
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 6:00 PM UTC
As dusk sets on this pasture
somehow a burger wrapper manages to find its way back home.
This sense of vapid euphoria sets in among the cows,
as they all gather to greet their brethren...
So different in form,
yet it's as if the farmer never took him away
in the first place.
And as I sit at this desk
under a parade of fluorescent lights,
I can't help but be ushered down the hallways of my mind.
Life cycles, yet is a burger any less of a cow?
Now I can greet the trashcan with a new found sense of kinship.
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 3:15 PM UTC
Writer's block is like a white stone wall.
Every failed poem in the trashcan is like a brick.
Soon, I'll have enough to rebuild the great wall of China,
and the garbage man will know
many trees have died for my poetry.
Take heed, only you can prevent forest fires.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 9:42 PM UTC
He had a red raised bump from writing too long
Now, I feel a proud resistance from my 36 ‘o clock shadow’s frill
Summer cicadas, on Cranfield Road, always sang their song
and the sun set behind our blue Appalachian foothill
Now, I feel a proud resistance from my 36 ‘o clock shadow’s frill
I got to shoot Dad’s 30/30 rifle when I was fourteen
and the sun set behind our blue Appalachian foothill
No other Bayless has ever seen Peru’s countryside eaten in fire and morphine
I got to shoot Dad’s 30/30 rifle when I was fourteen
but Mom has always been a vegetarian (except for some fish)
No other Bayless has ever seen Peru’s countryside eaten in fire and morphine
Cheese, fruit, and silence is our favorite family dish
But mom has always been a vegetarian (except for some fish)
Mimi and Leiron love cats and Pops and I on ink relied
Cheese, fruit, and silence is our favorite family dish
Mimi’s glasses, shaken by sobs and laughter, fell off when he died
Mimi and Leiron love cats and Pops and I on ink relied
his dead lips were painted a shade too red, inexcusably
Mimi’s glasses, shaken by sobs and laughter, fell off when he died
The trashcan in my room was filled with murdered versions of his eulogy
his dead lips were painted a shade too pink, inexcusably
Summer cicadas, on Cranfield Road, always sang their song
The trashcan in my room was filled with murdered versions of his eulogy
He has a red raised bump from writing too long.
Aug 26, 2012
Aug 26, 2012 at 10:44 PM UTC
I remember walking up
to the Fiddler on the Roof audition
when I was fourteen years old
alone, feeling very unstoppable and confident
and then hiding behind the big trashcan
in the foyer of the auditorium
As they repeatedly called my name.
If you want something
throw it away.
I remember getting a *******
from a purring cat
in the dark
in a dumpster
behind a ***** bar.
If you love something
throw it away.
I remember buying you lingerie
and ripping it off of you
not even two hours later.
If you love someone
throw them away.
I remember seeing you
wear my shirts after ***
and how undescribably gorgeous
you looked then, glowing
and I thought about callling you
the other day to ask for them back
but then I realized:
If you loved in something
throw it away.
Nov 4, 2011
Nov 4, 2011 at 3:59 PM UTC
I might have told you some of these things,
If you were alive.
You had an amazing body from the moment we hit seventh grade.
Your ***** just sat, round and high,
Your ******* pointed straight outward,
Like a freak of nature, or an action figure.
Cheering at football games
Girls hated standing next to you because
You peeled their boyfriend’s eyes from their skirts to yours.
One summer night on Garrett’s roof,
After making turkey sandwiches at two in the morning,
******* the fumes in your thin lips,
Watching the smoke twist in the air
In front of your ice blue eyes,
And your white blonde hair,
We talked about ***
About how it’s ****** up
how it is so much harder
For girls to have *******
Then I dated Jesse,
After you.
We were 16.
Sometimes I think about the night I told you I was sorry,
In the parking lot by the river.
Your breath smelled like Doritos and cherry *****
You fooled around with your pink shirt
Telling me it was ok.
We talked about our secret handshake.
We talked about how you used to want to be nicknamed cupcake,
We talked about the time we had a séance.
Age eleven bringing back ******
On your screened-in porch,
Warm air swayed the candle flames,
Crickets in the darkness around us,
Suddenly,
A biker knocked over your trashcan in the ally.
You are dead now.
But you did it.
Sometimes I’ll eat too much,
Or *****
Or smoke half a pack of cigarettes,
When I think about you.
One night last summer I ate an entire half-gallon of vanilla ice cream,
Alone in my kitchen.
My stomach felt sick for three days.
I walk the trail behind your house,
The one where you think you started your period.
The first place we ever smoked ***
I talk to the trees about you.
When the wind blows the branches
And the dry leaves sound,
In that gentle shudder,
Along the cold ground,
My skin prickles,
And the hair on my arms rises towards the sky.
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 11:33 AM UTC
No one is here and I feel at ease;
I feel the recesses of my imagination
spring forward as ideas are at the
forefront of my mind,
yet I cannot put them down on paper.
I feel the neon pinks and blues and greens
that I know strongly resonate with me,
but to my dismay,
nothing ever comes to fruition
as much as I hope.
That cliché phrase of, “The sky is the limit,”
drowns me as I realize
parameters and prompts are what guide me
to what I truly want;
the idea of freedom gives me anxiety,
as I am a clueless ant on this plane.
As I look at a solitary trashcan
of impossible black,
this idea of suffocation
truly
encompasses
my mind, inescapable, unreachable, and unattainable.
Yet at the same time,
limits **** darlings.
With this seeming paradox
of open-endedness and limitation,
I set forth on my prompt,
however mundane it may seem now.
This task seemed at first simple,
but it proved difficult at times,
like most mundane looking venues.
My mind is not unlike
a checkerboard stone table:
cold and calculating;
I feel my imagination dies
when my fingers touch keys,
when pen hits paper.
“The sky is the limit,”
drowns me over
and over
and over again.
I look out of my peripherals
and glance at the red building signs,
wishing there was something
as obvious as that for a sense
of direction in my life.
My imagination truly hates me,
my imagination truly loves me;
it is an indecisive companion.
I wish I was alone, but my mind
wishes otherwise.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 3:05 PM UTC
How can I be so dispensable?
Useful, perhaps,
but dispensable.
Like toothpaste
that you squeeze
and squeeze
and squeeze
until I’ve run dry
and there’s nothing left
that I can give to you,
so you don’t put me away
with your knick knacks and treasures
but place me in the trashcan
without a second thought,
a fond memory,
or kind goodbye.
Goodbye.
Jan 28, 2011
Jan 28, 2011 at 9:56 PM UTC
Heartless *****
Got no soul to love
Heartless *****
Parasite feeding in our skin
Heartless *****
Don’t worry they do love something
That something is themselves
Heartless *****
spiked their life bringer into a flaming can
Heartless *****
watching the world from a cave.
Heartless *****
sleeping with friends.
No benefits attached.
Heartless *****
doesn’t care if you like them
Heartless *****
actually delighted they’re messed up
How about you keep you’re mouth sewed shut
and tear out your larynx.
Words from that useless hole are hollow.
Manipulation your mistress
Depression your *****
You take
and abuse
and lie.
Just chose one or the other you-
Heartless *****
Stay quiet, behave.
Heartless *****
do they even have a name?
Heartless *****
It’s still beating in the trashcan, cold.
I am that Heartless *****
Dec 7, 2017
Dec 7, 2017 at 5:51 PM UTC
from a dream
...My student's name is Ari
and he's dying...
“No serious talk today!” he warns
He wants to laugh –
and so we do
He wants the Patriarchs and Prophets
on this tropical island
He names them doing something funny
and I pick up where he leaves off--
with the second line:
“Elijah, with his ravens on a blow-up raft...”
“...Ascends with ham sandwich, sipping wine!”
“Jeremiah throwing mud *****
“...at Zedekiah's white garage!”
We rewrite the Old Testament
laughing till we cry
“Now that's what I'm talkin' about!”
He's pumped
and kicks that rebel trashcan 'cross the room
...and suddenly shouts out--
“For everything there is a season...!”
I do not finish this one....
“I'll tell Solomon you said Hi”
________________
...and in that moment half aware...
_________________
I'm wearing a grass skirt
in someone else's dream
I'm on Instagram
and I don't know how I got there
I have coconut halves for my ****
but for the life of me –
can't figure
how to keep them on
So I let them sway with my grasses
to the languid freedom of marimba music
toes clutching warmth of sand
No one here to see
but Instagram?
Nagging in the background:
How did I ever get here?
Dreaming like this... right?
Dec 27, 2017
Dec 27, 2017 at 5:04 PM UTC
I can hear the endless sounds
of my soul bleeding
and down the drain it goes
and all that was right
is now wrong
until it disappears completely
that's what it is
living alone
in a nether
with no family
with the world chewing you
ever so slowly
and pushing you back
in a trashcan "not normal"
or box for "socially acceptable"
and so called friends
lurking in shadows
waiting for you to fall
so they can salvage what is left
and you are alone
alone and your legs broken
that will teach you not to stand
alone and you will never be "home"
with bleeding soul
and heart so cold
that it gives you shivers
out of touch
and out of control
lets write him off as "lost"
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 8:56 PM UTC
The world is a giant trashcan
And I'm a dumpster diver trying to discover anything beautiful and white
And it wouldn't surprise me if I've already found it,
Covered in gum and hair and crumbs in the backseat of a gutted minivan
But I'm so busy judging the books with no cover
That I lost track of my little paper hearts that I used to give with a chocolate taped to the back
And sometimes I stare into this rotted wilderness and ask myself if I've stopped existing
Because the rearview mirrors are so grimy that I can't see my own reflection
And when I can't see if there's lettuce stuck in my teeth, I refrain from smiling just in case
So people stamp me into the category of grumpy, grownup girl
But for all I know,
We are all lost pearls from the necklace of the gods
(but I can't go back looking like this)
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 4:03 AM UTC
they buried a poet
sprinkled his words over coffin
tossed a book into dirt alongside
and waited few decades
to have a leaf sprout
for winds to carry his lines
far
to one with open ears
another circle in a world of squares
have phrases strain down the cheeks
into ink smeared on paper
buried in a trashcan
in a diary
in a library
in dirt
everywhere really...
Mar 2, 2021
Mar 2, 2021 at 6:07 AM UTC
Society drained
Welfare driven
Homeless people
Nothing given
Trashcan warmth
Starved to see
Ragged shoes
Nothing's free
Under the bridge
Walk by wonders
Not a glance
Nothing ponders
Bread line trays
Children cry
Hold their hands
Nothing sighs
Cardboard bed
Rain soaked leak
Covered in plastic
Everything's meek
Cruelty stumbles
****** up ways
Lie in stupor
Hunger for days
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 12:57 PM UTC
i swear
but i'll sleep under your bed if you'll let me &
eat the dust in the crawl space between your kitchen walls
when you're entertaining guests &
only come out when they're in another room
or you ask me to
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i'm actually on this ladder fixing your neighbor's gutter
yes this same spot has been damaged for three years
& deserves a complex solution arrived at by
strenuous deliberation
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i'm not wearing the cologne you bought your ex
for christmas last year & threw out
into the aluminum trashcan six months ago
because that ******* didn't appreciate you
like i could
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i don't know how your mail gets mixed up with mine
at least twice a week the postman must be dyslexic
& also trade his mailbag with the guy who delivers mine
for five dollar bribes
i'm not stalking you
i swear
it's just funny we go to the same dentist &
you have such white teeth my mother would love
you if only for them
i'm not stalking you
i swear
this idea hasn't been growing in my brain since
i was an innocent boy spurting his essence into
a gym class knee high sock at night after
watching baywatch reruns
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i don't spend my days wondering if i should get
****** piercings
because you seem like the type to enjoy them
i'm not stalking you
i swear
i walk home this way too but instead
of a third floor elevator ride in a gated community
on the next block i'll continue three more blocks
west take the train back south four miles & finish
cutting through alleys for another mile until i
arrive at my own cellar apartment
it's not out of my way
i don't mind taking an alternative route
i'm not stalking you
i swear
but your cheekbones are stealing my sleep
& when i do dream you turn your ***
toward me not in surrender but
defiance that vicious
dilated ******* and heavy flesh
taunting me in my own
fleabed forever
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 2:10 PM UTC
Insanity
I-N-S-A-N-I-T-Y
Insanity- doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results
The First Time...ended in downpour
a shower of sorts
self-inflicted and long
she rolled off my body like water
her name rolled from my mouth
actually, her name was never in my mouth
I did not swallow it
or rinse with it
it was not exchanged
it just dropped
...like the water
The First Time...started with a call
with nerves
she was all conservative sweater
her clothing did not betray her
sunken in couch
I was all of 16
my words betrayed me
No, maybe I betrayed my words
or maybe my mind betrayed us both
or maybe all betrayed all
each of my personalities lost within another
I was all of 16, pre-downpour
The First Time...was the worst time
sunken in couch to sunken in bed
I was all of 16, I was all of betrayal
She...was all LIBERAL
They say,
in the weakest of moments, the spirit is loosened from the body - a detachment of sorts
in my most sensual of moments, my body was loosened from my spirit
a weakness I guess
the first time ended with me
in a ******
in a trashcan
in a bathroom that was not mine
the first time ended in downpour
~6 years~
The Second Time
#post downpour/ pre-tempest
The Second Time...started with nerves
with a call
with an itch that needed scratching
I already knew the ending
-happy
...then downpour
I was all of grown boy
sunken in couch was a different chapter
sunken in bed was a different chapter
this time, I was the author
...the rest is still unwritten...
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 9:41 PM UTC
Three years ago
I was given
my first cactus plant
I named her Esperanza
Today I threw her away
in the kitchen trashcan –
the things we love don’t always get a funeral
when they rot
when we overwater, over love
accidentally
I keep her red ***
on the windowsill
empty
the garbage and walk it to the street
thinking of her green thorny throat
turning yellow and soft
when I still thought
exposure to the sun would heal her
Through a window I see
a dim living room, brown couch, teal walls
I imagine it is our couch
we must be doing dishes
after dinner – your hands
on my waist, I always forget
to take my rings off
until I have already started
scrubbing the plates
I take away your hands
leave on the rings
let the plates air dry
Let Esperanza grow
black spots and mold
and worry only about
the next plant
her red *** will hold
Dec 7, 2015
Dec 7, 2015 at 2:56 PM UTC
Silver shares such calming feeling towards my lifeless shell,
responsibilities flow me with joy and smiles,
however, under my silver I wear black.
I repaint my black walls in silver coats, wearing optimism like a crown,
gazing towards my darkest moments with sophistication and charm.
Seductive, mysterious and a comfort to all eyes,
secretive, silliness and sadness overwhelms my negative soul.
Under all of the layers of black and silver,
screaming towards me for affection.
You can find the smallest droplets of pink,
slowly is growing all over.
Hope holds me in a grip of pleaing and prays,
for one day I hold understanding and warmth with romance all my days.
Femininity is belittled thrown into a trashcan of self-doubt,
for once my little childish soul states,
"Can't we let femininity out?"
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 7:53 AM UTC
Her quiet footsteps in the dark
It was a cold, blistering night
Not knowing where she’s heading to
Oh, how it gave the little girl a fright
Any speck of noise was frightening
For she was all alone
A rustle in the bush
This little girl, only skin and bones
She turned a shark corner into the alley
A deathly breeze
Did she hear something?
She just wants to go home now, please?
Swoosh! Who’s there?
Her stomach starts to churn
A trashcan falls over
Her throat burns
A soft growl from behind
Slowing walking over
Hands trembling and sweating
Now where is her lucky clover?
The darkness coveted her
How could everything go so wrong?
Where’s all the good in the world
Like a sad old country song
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 1:10 AM UTC
Little Timmy Trashcan
Was born on a lonely day.
His mother had him and then
She threw Timmy away.
She never wanted children
She just wanted her man.
So, she got pregnant
And her man just ran.
Little Timmy Trashcan
Grew up nearly all alone.
A neighbor hired to feed him
So, he was all skin and bone.
His teacher tried to help
But the mother told lies.
She watched a lot of TV
And it made her PTA wise.
Little Timmy Trashcan
Much smaller than his peers.
Got beat on and ridiculed
For all his growing years.
No man was there to teach
How to stand up and fight
And his mother was busy
Going out almost every night.
Little Timmy Trashcan
Never made it to adult.
He lived beneath notice
And this was the result.
He learned how to vanish
And bother nobody much.
Little Timmy Trashcan
Died from no loving touch.
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 9:01 PM UTC
eight, nine
nine, eight, nine
Hello, father, spare me a dime,
and pay the mime with
five landmines;
**** off the bridge if
we've got time.
Appalachian Yeti-man:
set fire to the trashcan.
Call me hobo-stan,
and if the beard fits
grow it.
Show it;
show me the D.
Dentistry,
stay with me;
Explain for free:
"Dichotomy
of the mind"
thoughtfully,
for a time.
Robot-o me,
Mr. Oregato.
Set phasers to ****
stunningly.
Make fun of he
for bad grammar
and intellectuality.
He dumber;
me smarter.
She's aderall;
I'm martyr.
Destroy my innards,
Captain.
I need them not.
She leaves me rot,
and he feeds me Scott.
Scottie doesn't know
that Fiona and me
eat him in a van while
he's sleeping.
Cannibal,
call me Hannibal,
and she's the Jane to my
Tarzan,
pulling the fruits of
my loom.
Sep 4, 2013
Sep 4, 2013 at 1:40 AM UTC
I type in that old address
expecting google not to show a house
to show the empty lot
that from what i heard
was the result of putting a dishwasher
into the kitchen
and causing complete septic failure
that flooded that entire uptown PA acre.
But, it flies me there
and I cry a little
because it's an old picture-
the house is still there,
just as i remember it;
an empty lot to the side,
the dilapidated apartment in the back yard,
the shed at the end of the driveway
(which was just a couple of cement tracks
slightly thinner than the pathfinder tires)
the apple and pie cherry trees we used to climb.
the alley in the back
where we used to skip rocks
and run from the neighborhood dogs (and cats)
looks the same as well,
every car the same,
every empty house still empty,
every tipped trashcan still being tipped each week.
I go down every street I used to walk,
they're all the same,
the bus stop is still where it was
the trails are just as long and dark as they ever were
and each yellow yard looks just as it always did in midsummer.
the ponds in the park are still the same color
with the same algae growing in them
and the same overgrowth hideaways around them.
A mile down the road;
the mini-mart where I bought gum when i had money
hasn't changed a bit,
even the pink umbrellas are still in front of the smoothie bar
but, across the street
the used book store that i would get lost in is gone
and from there i notice subtle changes:
the blackberry bushes by the middle school,
that mom made multiple cobblers from, are gone,
the maternity store moved,
the shed that my stepdad first told us would be our new house,
(before showing us this place)
has been torn down, or fell over
(as i assume it did),
and it doesn't end there,
I practiced my eye in the small details of this small ****** of the world
even though i never talked to anyone
in all the hours i spent walking.
But i guess I remember so well,
because, four-and-a-half years later
I still consider that house home.
that house where my brother was born,
where i first went without my glasses, and liked it
where I was first given the freedom of a bus pass
and permission to leave the house,
where i had my first (and only) overnighter
where i first became addicted to cleaning
where i've packed so many memories
that i can understand why the sewage line broke
sometime after that picture was taken
©Brandon Webb
2012
Jan 3, 2013
Jan 3, 2013 at 5:14 AM UTC