"trashcans" poems
currently i am not
sad
depressed
lonely
alone
self-loathing
insecure
heartbroken
nor breaking hearts
and that makes me feel quite
out of
place
because i am surrounded by
scars
and tear-streaked (beautiful) faces
bruised knees drawn up to chests
dark empty rooms
broken mirrors
and trashcans filled
with crumpled lists of mistakes
and if i could,
i would take all the
scars
tears
and lonely nights
from the hearts that are broken
or breaking
and i wish i could
cloak The Light i’ve found
(or did It find me?)
around cold shoulders
and wash all the tired feet
that’ve been blindly stumbling
in the dark
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 9:52 PM UTC
lets go around and tell what we are thankful for
"family"
"friends"
"my home"
"opportunities"
"this country"
i am thankful for the starving kids digging through trashcans while we make a turkey that nobody eats,
i am thankful for the freezing cold that people have to live in while my parents make me wear a coat for the few moments I'm outside,
i am thankful for this world where we have the opportunity to go to college but if you don't go you will end up like the freezing hungry people gathering around a light pole right now,
i am thankful for this food that makes me hate myself,
i am thankful for these people who ask me why i am not like my sister or my brother,
i am thankful for these ignorant people that make me so much more smart.
Thank you, family. Don't forget to throw all the leftovers in the trash.
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 1:30 AM UTC
Of flashy pictures and subtle texts found
A guy’s feet when I look around,
Of heavy lids of trashcans crude
Images of Paoli in the ****
Of blood being ****** through the veins
And bedsheets filled with coffee stains.
Of walls and posts and weeks gone by,
Without a single scream or cry,
Of not a bath or a shower
Helpless without any such power,
Of Faustus and Valdes to spare
Othello seemed to have no care,
Tomorrow never dies for me…
For it's tomorrow I will never see.
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 8:39 AM UTC
Browsing in the bookstore,
I stumbled across
a journal
crammed with scraps
people found
in parking lots,
school yards,
fished out of trashcans.
Now I throw
copies of everything
I write away.
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 8:29 PM UTC
There's Midnight Ravens
along the telephone
wire.
Big black suckers
with deep dark
eyes that
see death
before it comes.
These hosts
of the end
pay me no mind
as I pass beneath
their roost.
They rudely go
about their
Raven buisness,
yelling and
******** their way
into the morning.
An unrelenting
bark drums
on from
behind
a white painted
fence.
An insane sound
like an alarm that
no one will turn
off.
I step over a small
cities worth of
ants who are
scrambling
around a crack
in the
sidewalk
clogged with
more frantic
ants.
The great flood
has arrived
in the form of
a timed sprinkler.
And all of
the soldiers
have abandoned
the Queen.
It's early morning
The air has
yet to be
choked out
by the
diesel fuel
and needless
emissions that will
soon began to
smother the
city
.
The faint smell
of fresh fish
makes its way
up the city
blocks from
the waterfront
below.
Old Italian and
Slavic women
stand outside
in their
long day time
night gowns
smoking cigarettes
while watering
the concrete.
I enter the
alley way ,
the smell of
***** diapers,
cheap
laundry detergent
and too
many children
surround an
apartment complex.
As I passed I came
upon the Black Princess
of these streets.
The wisest and
surest of them all
crosses my path.
Her tail held high
and strong,
striding care free,
she looks at me
with her
emerald eyes
and yawns.
She stops near a row
of trashcans that
are lined
up looking like
a modern
day monolith.
She laps at her
paw with slow,
long, lazy
licks as I
pass.
She again fixes me
with those marble green
eyes and lets me
know without
saying a word.
That the alley cat kills
for fun.
Ignores all Gods
by choice
and laughs
at our attempts
to tame it.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 11:39 AM UTC
We were so ecstatic waiting for the wind
to wind its way through the trees--
there was an electricity in the air,
a charged warning.
We sat on the porch guarded by
oversized hoodies
and a wooden awning--
smoked bowls and snickered
at the squirrels dashing
lightning speed from unsteady
branches into hidden havens.
For hours we waited and watched
lawn chairs, trashcans, and
fields of leaves swirl up into the sky,
finally earning a retreat
into chaos. The newly
boarded windows withstood
the huffing and puffing of
nature’s big bad wolf-
he was not so ravenous this time.
Not like Katrina or Andrew.
Not enough to warrant
a week of cancelled classes
and hours of uninterrupted
news coverage- how quickly we
overreact to even the slightest
threat of rain or snow.
This was nothing more
than a PG rated epic but parents
sheltered their children,
covered their eyes and ears,
rocked them to sleep as even
picnic tables stood their ground.
Jul 13, 2010
Jul 13, 2010 at 9:37 AM UTC
I send lil paper ships sailing down the curb
as the crows and the vultures attack the trashcans in the suburbs
I watch the rich kids driving there nice whips
but they are a bunch of wimps
one punch in there lip
one kick in the knees
and they'd just limp away
because even though im a poor kid
ive lived more life
even though they call me skid
even though im a skinny kid
id still bust all over your girlfreinds ****
and in the black light she would shine like a florecent lightbulb
while your sitting on your golf cart
im making **** noises on the belly of your women
making her my mistress
making the matress squeak
as my lil paper ship sails down
who would've known what was happening when i was making it
now were both laughing
because when you get home
your gonna be kissing my ****
ha
ha
ha
Aug 4, 2011
Aug 4, 2011 at 12:01 PM UTC
Moments of total nothingness,
you don't deserve it, just because you're unknown
Your greatest virtue lies within
your inner dialogue between one
Your audience smiles at your achievements,
as you look into a mirror applauding a reflection
Prolific insight woven and painted by your pen
is sadly wasted, unraveled and sloshed by bias
esoteric and snobbish, the twins of bias,
sit on high poetic mountains of celebrity,
while filing away your non-read thoughts into
deep, deep trashcans
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 2:11 PM UTC
White Interceptors illuminate, cry, and leave ribbons of red and blue,
accelerating north on Featherbed. Streetlamps hang like midnight ornaments.
It starts to rain, turning the tar streets into slick mirrors.
I can see my lights lead me, sweeping the asphalt.
Kent is still too dangerous to gentrify. The trashcans are spilling
cereal boxes and empty two liters. I imagine a two-thousand year-old
mountain of trash, corroding and forming this neighborhood.
Barefoot children walk around aluminum cakes, reaching for the rain.
Skinny cats trot across the street, green and yellow eyes,
leaking through the dark. I name them after sicknesses.
The humming of my Camry grows louder as I squeeze by
dripping, patting hands. I now recognize the moon.
Buildings swoosh by faster and faster. Minutes go by and I
find myself on the outskirts; the trees sway, dodging rain.
My phone rings like a frenzied roach. Picking it up,
'Hello.'
'Sure. Yeah, I'll be right there.
'Nowhere.
'I'm going nowhere.'
The phone bounces on the grey seat. A screeching.
Coming to a stop; my chest almost touching the center
of the steering wheel. All becomes still.
A buck with velvet antlers stands in the rain.
It runs into the dancing forest. Much like me.
Oct 25, 2017
Oct 25, 2017 at 5:37 PM UTC
as i sat cross legged in my dorm room,
the dawn lazily waking,
hugging my solid metal wastebasket
emptying the contents of my bad decisions
into its yawning mouth
lurching forward with each violent reminder
of every feeble drowning
of every bitter memory
i realized
only squares have trashcans with holes in them.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 7:39 PM UTC
Don't give your words to the blind deaf spirits.
With eyes they simply don't use.
They couldn't care for your naggy rantings.
They ignore you; call you Katy Kaboom.
Hardly worth the look,
they are crust beneath trashcans.
Walking off while you breathe.
I find it hard to look at people, who refuse to listen to me.
Don't treat it kind to by waved away,
cast as the alien kind.
Don't waste a spit on carcass ungraced with noblesse oblige of a man.
'Man-kind' should be a revelation,
but dumb is the man with abused to his senses.
Only fairy tales may glue dumb and kind as one.
I've seen that only wise men may not be criticized.
For only kind men, wise men, will treat a woman wise.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 7:59 PM UTC
I filled three trashcans, granted the bathroom size, to the brim with crumpled college-ruled cursive, failed attempts at the marriage of language and vision, all the things in my mind I could not put to paper. I couldn’t find the million-dollar words I wanted.
I Google’d the “100 most beautiful words of the English language.”
Efflorescence. I would have liked to use that one. Or maybe petrichor.
Chatoyant.
I tried to give mass to chimeras.
They grew old easily, floating down a temporal lazy river.
Her tissue-paper dreams were torn by the hooks of hometown love.
My metaphors fell flat.
I tried to envision Parnassus, something like rolling hills dotted with vibrant flowers, plants with names I do not know lining the slopes. I am not familiar with Greek foliage. I imagined myself climbing, turning over rocks in search of inspiration.
I found only isopods.
Between 5/4 inch margins I constructed a paper balloon, my papyrus mausoleum. Here is my embalmed work. Blank. Blank. Blank.
Apr 30, 2012
Apr 30, 2012 at 10:35 AM UTC
I am space
I am the space around me
Unfilled with people, Unfilled with conversation
I am the space in my pockets; no candy wrappers or love notes
I am space
I am empty
I am the empty soda cans filling my trashcans
Empty, I am the hollow in my stomach when I cannot eat
I am the bottles of water I drink to avoid conversation
I am the empty pens, ink used up
I am empty
I am space
I am an infinite void who's farthest corners will never be discovered; not by a lack of effort, but a lack of idea
I am the space between words, allowing you, my love, to stay cognizant(iloveyou)
I am the space between the blades of grass, giving bugs a place to live
I am the space between the tiles, full of grime and dirt and dust, I am a mess between a mess
I am space
I am empty
I am the feeling right before you eat
I am the empty trash bin, just cleaned
I am the empty spaces inside the car, just waiting to be filled
I am not empty, I am 0% filled
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 9:44 AM UTC
Broken glass shines brightly
beautifully mangled and
shredded to pieces.
Before the fall,
its wholeness was not complete.
It lacked the cracks
it sparkled less
and all we could see
was ourselves.
There is concrete around us
there are trashcans and garbage
and babies and flowers.
There is the power and deception
of humanity and
beautiful people to be saved.
We saw ourselves in all
our (untrue) glory
and walked on broken glass
proclaiming that it didn't hurt.
Missing the light shining
from those pieces we crushed.
But that demolition is
where our truth lies.
Jul 11, 2013
Jul 11, 2013 at 10:14 AM UTC
Vital organs wasting away
On a life of my own,
Shattered to nothing.
Push me out of a moving car
Settle for less than road ****
Meet my eyes, trip inside
Witness the abuse of my soul.
Shake the emotions of loss
Away, yearn to drown in clarity.
An avalanche will do!
Trampling your mind.
Paralyzing your limbs.
Movement of no kind.
After the terror is lost in the snow,
Remember the horror of
The girl, who was left alone.
Travel with her, place unknown.
Flee from society's priorities that roam.
Drool for captivating mankind,
Bury past loves in trashcans. Take
Whiffs of their boxed-up selves,
Rotting away like the girl on the road.
Realize this universe
Moves in a circle,
Everyone knows nothing.
Emptiness and ignorance suffocating
You, the girl, eyes, and trashcans.
Nothing.
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 9:49 AM UTC
I can promise you that
I rarely cry at photographs
This is very new to me
But these tears are true
Just as your photos are true
Your photos are the true America
Thousands of photos
Of lives you only knew
I want to cover my house with your work
I want to imprint your photos inside my eyelids
So my dreams are filled with
The magnificent contrast
Beautiful simplicity
The truth shown through your eyes and the eyes of your camera, held at navel level, as you look into the eyes of your subject
What true art you have made!
Art rarely seen
Until after you passed
I wished I could meet you
A true beautiful soul
Why do all the beautiful souls leave me here?
Your pictures of the poor enlighten me
Your scenery inspires me
I can almost hear your faux French accent
You worked as a nanny
And you hid yourself
With fake names
Always a secret
You locked the doors behind you
For years your art was locked in boxes
Boxes and boxes
And photos of dead horses
Crying children
Extreme human conditions
Photos of trashcans
All was art
You could truly see it couldn't you?
You could see the truth
Of which I wish to write
I hope you were happy
Or at least content
I hope the nights weren't too dark
I hope you are glad to hear
The world loves what you have done
I thank you
We all thank you
And I wish you well
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 8:47 PM UTC
You carry the kind of ashy witchcraft
I read about in cut-out passages
of out-of-date New Orleans newspapers
discarded in alley-cat trashcans
bums use to light fires that further an
unwarranted air of rebellion.
I don't understand you.
But every ounce of me
wants to fill you in
like a crosswords puzzle
with words that aren't the ones they're
looking for
but still find a way of fitting all the same.
And my brain bleeds memories
I've made up
that stain my shirt like unwashed sweat
and make me feel *****
for getting myself so hot in the first place.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 1:04 AM UTC
Paintings hang high on walls and in fancy frames
Music blows through the ear as hot wind whispers
Talk is called cheap at blind book signings
Poetry sits patient in parchment fold leaflets atop trashcans over flown
Culture is no longer a noun, another adjective scripting the actor to frown
So beg questions profound, what have we done?
As becoming becomes a stripped scrap of bone
Calamity forever, the individual snared by ancestral surrender
All the while spectacular wonders persist in mocking that which boldly engenders
The passage of their faceless makers, leaving only us fakers
To gawk, jaws agape, slipping towards our attentive fates whatever the base Seemingly so resistant an occupation worthy of the sacrifice, to trade ****** space
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 7:59 PM UTC
Holiday cheers, the spirits now here to up the downpit moods! Where swinger's go singers, and companionship is far beyond due!
Stringed up longing, stuffed feathered innocent pleasures where the gravy spells of finer of many dinings!!
Bring good tidings you attitude bringer, you dope sick slinger, thine gun has drawn itself to fast!!!! Parties awake the deadened vines, where ghastly projectors contract the powers of unearthly glass!!!
The world moves to slow!, STOP, look ahead fantasizer, the escalated wheels to fast!!!
Sodomatic beauty, input newbie, your thistles are spreading the fences, where trashcans and benches distinguish flawful fate!!!
A fulfillment of vows, a timeless volgate. Proverbial collection's detest the furnaced crucible, where Loophole's are bound and bagged to be stench!!!!
Glider of turbulance, father of remembrance, forget what thine holy teacher has taught you to be???
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 7:16 AM UTC
I could say I am a ball of contradictions,
confusions and delusions
But I'm no ball,
I'm no perfect shape.
Rather,
I'm just pieces of different debris
And forsaken things,
Like the broken arm off a kid's doll
Thrown together,
In attempts to make something.
And in attempts to make something of myself,
I lost you and
I came up with nothing.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror
But all I see is an empty, yet full frame.
I feel so empty,
I've left you in people and things
I've worn myself out trying to find you
and I'm tired.
I'm empty, yet full.
Full of things that aren't me
Full of little pieces I've kept from many old you's
Hoping to one day find the real you.
I'm tired, tired of roaming in different directions,
Spinning in different circles
And scaling hills and valleys,
To find you
I'm tired of looking in empty trashcans,
And through the cracks in sidewalks,
And in people,
To find you.
I'm tired of seeking and not finding.
Dear old self, can you stop hiding?
This game of hide and seek is getting pretty tiring.
h.s
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 8:51 PM UTC
I.
Sometimes drunken flowers are placed between books and
his lips are clamped shut
while i walk past trashcans and find letters
buried,
like his bones
with forced smiles carved upon each and every one
hands reaching out, grabbing
i could feel its yearning
from a mile away
and i shut my ears and clench my eyes
i can't stand the feeling twice.
II.
My soul was shot;
i later burned it with matchsticks and clouds
sand pricked my feet
as i sit for hours on end at gas stations and sidewalks
lamps were never lit in my house and
i was left
among the darkness.
i never saw you behind the trigger.
III.
I don't trust the black and blue hue
growing on my chest;
they say its from my heart.
I laugh them away and
tune out the rest.
"I have no heart, you made sure of that."
emotions i used to scorn and
cringe at
appear on paper and skin as words
that looked like my
splintered bones and
broken footsteps.
can i talk about the time when scarecrows were making torches and chairs
or will someone realise that i'm talking to thin air?©
Feb 23, 2014
Feb 23, 2014 at 8:08 AM UTC
welcome to my city,
in which fog spreads melancholy
and rain is restless yet lazy.
angels and demons live side by side,
on the edge of a sharp knife.
peace exists under the sun
so nighttime is wartime
but beware; for shady alleys at any time
are battle grounds full of mines.
(i asked a flower and
she swore on all the little mistakes in my city
that it was angels who planted those mines.)
welcome to my city,
in which some boys are too ugly
with their dusty faces and grey knives,
and some girls can't be pretty,
with their black knees and shallow eyes.
in which some boys are too pretty.
with their nice clothes and dead souls,
and some girls can't be ugly,
with their shiny hair and million rules.
(i asked a little mistake
and he swore to me on all living souls in my city
that he shall never become ugly or pretty.)
welcome to my city,
in which flowers bloom in trashcans
the way the moon does amongst the fog,
and green plants grow in the corners
the way little breathing mistakes do,
but the plants turn out to be poisonous,
and the mistakes are hopeless children
with broken hearts; they're dangerous,
with an excessive sense of fearlessness.
(i asked an ugly girl
and she swore to me on all the restless droplets of rain
that half of those mistakes will always be afraid.)
welcome to my city,
in which you can find:
children and flowers in trashcans,
angels and demons in a constant fight,
setting up mines in shady alleys
where the ugly boys and pretty boys lurk,
waiting patiently for the moon to shine,
and for girls who are neither ugly nor pretty to show,
and for the melancholic fog to settle down.
(welcome to my city,
in which we all have been waiting for you.
i asked an angel and a demon
and they both swore to me on all the humans in my city
that you're a god.
and gods. don't. cry.
you're our saviour.
we can start off by removing the mines,
and making sure that the sun remains alight.)
—
Feb 15, 2019
Feb 15, 2019 at 4:46 AM UTC
It's Libra season
and I forgot who my friends were
I think they forgot me too
I said no to a pity party this year
so instead I drank a bottle of champagne
plus some
plus some
It hurts so much when you call, it hurts so much when
you say you miss me
it hurts all over when I throw up the next day
and no one rubs my back
no one kisses me anymore
no tenderness is afforded on my body
and my weakness is seen as weakness
I get no
relief for hours, the day after
I wish underneath my sobriety I wasn't scared
I wish I understood love the way I understand drunk speech
and mixed drinks and lonely afternoons and trashcans
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 2:51 PM UTC