Best Plastic Bag Poems
If I Were a Plastic Bag…
I would help shoppers carry their stuff.
Anything: groceries, toys or powder puffs.
I could help thrice, because I am tough.
I like to; it is fun to see their stuff!
Sometimes I wait for weeks in the dark, scrunched.
Kept there unused for months crowded and hunched…
I am not alone; we plastic bags are bunched.
Waiting in the dark while the humans munch.
I dream that one-day, soon I will fly up high.
I will escape on the day that the wind blows by.
A breath of fresh air will lift me into the sky.
I will see the city's grandeur; then, I shall sigh.
It seems like forever the days go slow.
Up in a treetop it would not be so.
I could just hang around beneath sun's glow.
Watching travelers drive about on streets below.
Freedom's dream, flying high, has not come to fruition.
The life I lead in cabinets has become a mission.
Somehow, now, based upon the economic condition.
I just lay back in the dark and wait in submission.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
December 18, 2009
...from the movie, 'American Beauty'
A plastic bag, a windy day,
darting, dancing high and low,
coquettish in her flight of fancy,
all in all, a one-bag show;
a street performer with a twist,
I wish you could have seen her,
a holder meant for groceries,
an no-name ballerina.
Erratic, yes, but orchestrated,
it's as if a puppeteer
controlled the choreography,
a protege without a peer;
she soared and swooped, this virtuoso,
then the errant wind was gone,
no pirouettes to look upon,
and I was left to ruminate,
an audience of one.
Yesterday while on my way to a supermarket I saw a little girl of perhaps five leaning at
a tree close to the road and watching a blue plastic bag which was drifting in the wind.
She looked very sad with her light blue eyes and her blond hair streamed out behind her.
The bag was lifted by a strong blast and I ran after it, crossing the road. A car came and
stopped, waiting for me to cross the road. A younger man on the other side of the road saw
that I wanted to catch the bag and he was also running after it, but the wind drifted the
bag far over the lawn up hills. After some unsuccessful attempts to get hold of the bag he
finally could grab it. I went to him and he gave me the bag and smiled. I then told him
that a little girl was sad about losing that bag. He wished me a nice weekend and I
returned to that little girl still standing near the tree but this time smiling. She shyly
whispered "Thank you", took the bag and ran to her little playmates waiting for her
anxiously in the background.
You know what it feels like,
with a plastic bag on your head,
how you struggle to breathe,
your lungs start to beg.
Panic builds up inside,
instinctively you fight back,
trying to rip this bag off
you want to survive.
Time slows down,
every second hurts,
in and out on conscious thought,
trying to figure a way out.
Well welcome to my world,
where anxiety thrives,
a plastic bag on my head,
is what it feels like.
Contest: Paper or plastic - Susan Burch
M.Mahauariki © 2012
2nd Place
...from the movie, 'American Beauty'
A plastic bag, a windy day,
darting, dancing high and low,
coquettish in her flight of fancy,
all in all, a one-bag show;
a street performer with a twist,
I wish you could have seen her,
a holder meant for groceries,
an no-name ballerina.
Erratic, yes, but orchestrated,
it's as if a puppeteer
controlled the choreography,
a protege without a peer;
she soared and swooped, this virtuoso,
then the errant wind was gone,
and I was left to ruminate,
an audience of one.
A plastic bag, a windy day,
she's darting, dancing high and low,
coquettish in her flight of fancy,
all in all, a one-bag show;
a street performer with a twist,
I wish you could have seen her,
a holder meant for groceries,
a no-name ballerina.
Erratic, yes, but orchestrated,
it's as if a puppeteer
controlled the choreography,
a protege without a peer.
She soared and swooped, this virtuoso,
then the errant wind was gone,
and I was left to ruminate,
an audience of one.
********
...inspired by 'that scene' in the movie, 'American Beauty,'
once seen never forgotten and alone worth the price of admission!
PLASTIC BAG PLAGIARISM
I thought it was all over but I have
Been assaulted by a plagiarists’ wave,
And I felt used, abused, dirty .
I’ve received insults about a plastic bug (about thirty)
And a plastic bog. Some have referred
To my plastic as being merely big; or claimed (and erred)
To have seen how my poor dead plastic begs.
But the most heartlessly cruel dregs
Were making “plastic dog” jokes,
Not to mention the bombastic pseudo-erudite folks
With their sarcastic references (often sick)
To elastic clastics in the mastic,
And how my “idiot” dog was enthusiastic,
Though drastic and rustic.
From people’s cruelty there seems no refuge
But, who knows? When they get to the pearly gate
They could come face to face with a huge
Plastic dog determining their fate.
A plastic bag, a windy day,
she's darting, dancing high and low,
coquettish in her flight of fancy,
all in all, a one-bag show;
a street performer with a twist,
I wish you could have seen her,
a holder meant for groceries,
a no-name ballerina.
Erratic, yes, but orchestrated,
it's as if a puppeteer
controlled the choreography,
a protege without a peer.
She soared and swooped, this virtuoso,
then the errant wind was gone,
and I was left to ruminate,
an audience of one.
********
...inspired by 'that scene' in the movie, 'American Beauty,'
once seen never forgotten.
PLASTIC BAG : THE EARLY DAYS
They said we all had a shining future, with bright lights,
Advertising panels, and supermarket voice-over mentions
Of high-quality “cellophane presentation wrappers”
Of fruit - suitable even as a gift wraps
We enjoyed peer support from other plastic bags
We were all in it together like boot camp
We had an important (fruit )role of “protecting and preserving”
Just like the door motto on police black-and-whites
And they told us there was the possibility of recycling -
A change of career in our later years,
Maybe as a drinks canister or a garden hose-pipe.
I was even thinking. . . pension plan
But disillusion set in early, with my first experience
Of rotten apples inside my “gift wrap” skin, and smelly fungus growing.
Man I could see it all in a flash - it was a set-up, a con-job,
We were just unimportant plastic bags, which people throw away.
Wind draft caught my loosened bag-tie one afternoon
And I was up and away, through the door without a by-your-leave
Mmmmm. . . fresh air and chilling with the seagulls
And the rest is history
A plastic bag, a windy day,
she's darting, dancing high and low,
coquettish in her flight of fancy,
all in all, a one-bag show;
a street performer with a twist,
I wish you could have seen her,
a holder meant for groceries,
a no-name ballerina.
Erratic, yes, but orchestrated,
it's as if a puppeteer
controlled the choreography,
a protege without a peer.
She soared and swooped, this virtuoso,
then the errant wind was gone,
and I was left to ruminate,
an audience of one.
PLASTIC BAG: THE SAGA CONTINUES
Yes, they laughed at him, full of hot air, but he died trying.
It’s easy to forget that - it seems -
Plastic bags too have ambitions, careers, dreams.
He was ready and waiting for a slight opening . . . anything.
Saw Dick Whittington with his bag full of potential;
Inspired by Mary Poppins’ magic bag so special ;
Noted the bank paper-money in reinforced bags commercial;
Those doctors’ bags for the sick – so beneficial.
Door ajar one day, wind of change lifted his spirit -
He took his chance: he challenged the system :
Could be more than a plastic wrapper menacing the ecosystem.
Chance favors the prepared: his ambition was transparent.
The others were cautious, rappers singing of life in the crapper.
His life was limited to apple-wrap : made him sick
Listening to other wrappers’ mundane earth-bound music -
Most despondent of all is an apple-wrapper rapper.
On his death-bed he did not regret his attempt:
Ok - it ended in a downdraft and muddle,
Sinking in the dog crap puddle;
But I’d do it again he cried, if someone should tempt.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NOTE
This is the second in a series of supermarket-plastic-bag-wrapper poems
dedicated to a particular apple-wrapper which escaped in the high winds
of St. Petersburg, Russia. The first in the series was ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR.
PLASTIC BAG PREJUDICE AND BIGOTRY
What’s that over there?
Don’t bother, it’s just another of those goddamned plastic bags,
Just a plastic bag, a thin polythene bag,
Transparent, cheap, ugly: seen one seen ‘em all -
If I see one comin’ my way, I avoid it.
Always hangin’ in bunches at corners of streets
Where you wouldn’t walk at night,
In the markets after honest folks have all gone home,
Hovering, looking for nothing in particular.
An aimless existence, I tell you,
And I swear you can smell the stink off ‘em fifty feet away.
Can just tell by their color - they’re trouble.
And of course, always linked to cocaine and suchlike.
These guys never amount to anything; just useless,
Blowin’ in the wind - no purpose, no function, no real job:
Kinda like parasites on our country.
Decent folks don’t want ‘em - they don’t really belong.
Better to use good American paper bags, instead
Of importing these guys from sweat shops in Asia.
They’re nothing but trouble - they block up drains;
Can choke a kid; and suffocate a dog;
And we can’t get rid of ‘em. They won’t go away,
Don’t decay for like five zillion years in the soil.
We’d be better off without them -
Our country would be cleaner, less spoiled,
The way it was in the old days.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
NOTE
This is the third in my PLASTIC BAG trilogy. If I write a fourth, it will be a quadrilogy
DOG AND PLASTIC BAG
- THE END
My dog went after a plastic bag one day
Caught it in mid-flight, I’d say
Stopped its ascent to greater glory
But that’s not the end of the story
Bag got caught on the poor dog’s head
After a struggle the dog was dead
Sorry, no more poems about bag or dog
To amuse and hold readers agog
A plastic bag appeared in my dream,
Polluting my thoughts of love
A sign or trickery it may seem
Sent from way above
I look outside and see the garden
My face begins to sag
Oh Lord, I beg your pardon
A rose in a plastic bag
...from the movie, 'American Beauty'
A plastic bag, a windy day,
darting, dancing high and low,
coquettish in her flight of fancy,
all in all, a one-bag show;
a street performer with a twist,
I wish you could have seen her,
a holder meant for groceries,
an no-name ballerina.
Erratic, yes, but orchestrated,
it's as if a puppeteer
controlled the choreography,
a protege without a peer;
she soared and swooped, this virtuoso,
then the errant wind was gone,
and I was left to ruminate,
an audience of one.