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Famous Garbage Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Garbage poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous garbage poems. These examples illustrate what a famous garbage poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...alling
the breasts up—he buried her in it,
perhaps he had never bothered to take it
off. They found her underpants
in a garbage can. And I feared the word
eczema, like my acne and like
the X in the paper which marked her body,
as if he had killed her for not being flawless.
I feared his name, Burton Abbott,
the first name that was a last name,
as if he were not someone specific.
It was nothing one could learn from his face.
His face was dull and ordinary,
it took away what I’...Read more of this...
by Olds, Sharon



...I cleaned out your bureau drawers:
your usual disorder; an assortment of gorgeous wigs
and prosthetic breasts
tossed in garbage bags, to spare your gentle spouse.
Then the bequests

you had made to every friend you had!
For each of us a necklace or a ring.
A snapshot for me:
We two, barefoot in chiffon, laughing amid blossoms
your last wedding day....Read more of this...
by Kizer, Carolyn
...d boil faster now. It would take only six months. The house was quiet.
I looked out the back porch. There were sacks of garbage there. I stared at the garbage
and tried to figure out what she had been eating lately by studying the containers and
peelings and stuff. I couldn't tell a thing.
It was now March. The water started to boil. I was pleased by this.
I looked at the table. There was the jar of instant coffee, the empty cup and the spoon
all laid out like a funeral servi...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...left or right
 I'm just staying home tonight,
 getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
 But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
 that Time cannot decay,
 I'm junk but I'm still holding up
 this little wild bouquet:
 Democracy is coming to the U.S.A....Read more of this...
by Cohen, Leonard
..., 
he walks with the bread through Valparaiso. 
He says:
 " Eugenio, look!
You see--
 over there, among the puddles and garbage,
standing up under the red lamps
stands Bilbao-with the soul
 of a poet -- in bronze.
Bilbao was a tramp and a rebel.
Originally
 they set up the monument, fenced off
by a chain, with due pomp, right in the center,
although the poet had lived in the slums.
Then there was some minor overthrow or other,
and the poet was thrown out, beyond the gates.
Sw...Read more of this...
by Yevtushenko, Yevgeny



...ing for it; 
Some milk-nosed maggot, blessing what lets it wrig to its hole. 

This face is a dog’s snout, sniffing for garbage;
Snakes nest in that mouth—I hear the sibilant threat. 

This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea; 
Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go. 

This is a face of bitter herbs—this an emetic—they need no label; 
And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog’s-lard.

This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...uld be

especially if washington lost its temper
and screamed christ lake erie
i don’t even know what to do
with my own garbage

pollution is just one of those things

go on lake erie
do it tonight

(c) drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead

(i)
isn't the next one
easter egg

  i don't want to live any more in an old way

yes it is

  to be a socialist wearing capitalism's cap
  a teacher in the shadow of a dead headmaster
  a tree using somebody else's old...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg
...**** ME
I'm all screwed up so
**** ME.

**** ME
and take out the garbage
feed the cat and **** ME
you can do it, I know you can.

**** ME
and theorize about
Sado Masochism's relationship
to classical philosophy
tell me how this stimulates
the fabric of most human relationships,
I love that kind of pointless intellectualism
so do it again and
**** ME.

Stop being logical
stop contemplating
the origins of evil
and the beaut...Read more of this...
by Estep, Maggie
...city the day after,
when all the rape's been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it's the smiling
tires me out the most. 
This, and the pretence
that I can't hear them.
And I can't, because I'm after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and obliqu...Read more of this...
by Atwood, Margaret
...hildren

riding the cable cars.








 FOOTNOTE CHAPTER TO



 "RED LIP"





Living in the California bush we had no garbage service. Our

garbage was never greeted in the early morning by a man

with a big smile on his face and a kind word or two. We

couldn't burn any of the garbage because it was the dry seas-

on and everything was ready to catch on fire anyway, includ-

ing ourselves. The garbage was a problem for a little while

and then we discovered a way to get ri...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...g in America Shorty coming.

 "I pushed him last week, "

 "I pushed him yesterday, "

 "Quick, let's hide behind these garbage cans."

 And they would hide behind the garbage cans while Trout

Fishing in America Shorty staggered by in his wheelchair.

The kids would hold their breath until he was gone.

 Trout Fishing in America Shorty used to go down to

L'Italia, the Italian newspaper in North Beach at Stockton

and Green Streets. Old Italians gather in front of the news-
...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...e medicine under such conditions. The patients

think they own you and your time. They think you're their

own personal garbage can.

 "I'd be home eating dinner and the telephone would ring,

'Help ! Doctor ! I'm dying! It's my stomach ! I've got horrible

pains !' I would get up from my dinner and rush over there.

 "The guy would meet me at the door with a can of beer in

his hand. 'Hi, dec, come on in. I'11 get you a beer. I'm

watching TV. The pain is all gone. Great, hu...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...ns aney more.
Time for another cigerette and then let the curtains rise, then I 
 knowtice the dirt makes a road to the garbage pan 
No ice box so a dried up grapefruit.
Is there any one saintly thing I can do to my room, paint it pink 
 maybe or instal an elevator from the bed to the floor,
 maybe take a bath on the bed?
Whats the use of liveing if I cant make paradise in my own 
 room-land?
For this drop of time upon my eyes
like the endurance of a red star on a cigerate
ma...Read more of this...
by Orlovsky, Peter
...rmy counters 
And the sun pours down like honey 
On our lady of the harbour 
And she shows you where to look 
Among the garbage and the flowers 
There are heroes in the seaweed 
There are children in the morning 
They are leaning out for love 
And they will lean that way forever 
While Suzanne holds the mirror 
And you want to travel with her 
And you want to travel blind 
And you know that you can trust her 
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind....Read more of this...
by Cohen, Leonard
...homes
and walk in gardens
you who have killed a man and own a
beautiful wife
you tell me
why I am on fire like old dry
garbage.

we might surely have some interesting
correspondence.
it will keep the mailman busy.
and the butterflies and ants and bridges and
cemeteries
the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics
will still go on a
while
until we run out of stamps
and/or
ideas.

don't be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on 
doors....Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles
...When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine--
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she'd lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the fa...Read more of this...
by Roethke, Theodore
...sturb 
 what little wildlife was left 
 in the alleys: birds moved from 
 branch to branch, and the dogs leapt 
 at the garbage. Winter numbed 
 even the hearts of the young 
 who had only their hearts. We 
 heard the war coming; the long 
 wait was over, and we moved 
 along the crowded roads south 
 not looking for what lost loves 
 fell by the roadsides. To flee 
 at all cost, that was my youth. 

 Here in the African night 
 wakened by what I do not 
 know and shivering i...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip
...the Caribbean a baptismal font, 
turned butterflies to stone, and whitened like doves 
the buzzards circling municipal garbage), 
the Caribbean was borne like an elliptical basin 
in the hands of acolytes, and a people were absolved 
of a history which they did not commit; 
the slave pardoned his whip, and the dispossessed 
said the rosary of islands for three hundred years, 
a hymn that resounded like the hum of the sea 
inside a sea cave, as their knees turned to stone, 
w...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek
...here often
we would be suspicious if he
did without an identity card
we collect each others' mail
remind each other of garbage
days and are frightened
of the louts from the skating rink
but in the night I leave
my curtains open and air
my pendant tremulous breasts...Read more of this...
by Mansell, Chris
...ou to realize I mean no.
You can imagine the confusion 
surrounding our movie dates, the laundry,
who will take out the garbage
and when. I remind him 
I'm an American, that all has yeses sound alike to me. 
I tell him here in America we have shrinks 
who can help him to be less of a people-pleaser. 
We have two-year-olds who love to scream "No!" 
when they don't get their way. I tell him, 
in America we have a popular book,
When I Say No I Feel Guilty.
"Should I get you a co...Read more of this...
by Duhamel, Denise

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things