TRASH
rubbish
thrown away
gone to the ocean
where plastic pyramids
are forever monuments
“turn trash into recycled art”
little masked bandits
scurry over backyard gate
to open trash can
Money has a delightful scent, one with the power to smother the stench of misery before death comes to extinguish its power altogether.
To be poor is an unbearable nightmare when one knows exactly what it would take to escape the humiliations of overcrowded living and deprivation.
Truth prostitutes itself on the crumbling sidewalks of falsehood whenever money sheds its impurities.
Money brings happiness; only the rich, showering beneath the fountains of opulence, claim otherwise.
I know what it is like to rummage through the trash bins of precarity in order to survive the violence of a nightmarish daily existence.
To remain dignified in a reality chained to perpetual lack is a penance that resembles the calamities of hell.
Disappointment Is So Hard
To Throw Away...
Like A Parasite, You Just
Can't Shake It Off.
It Seems It Would
Be Easy To Throw
Out The Trash...
But Like A Tattoo...
Go Away!
Out Damn Spot!
Like A Life Sadly
Lost, Expended.
"Expired."
-Gray Squirrel
03-29-2026
Like humanity rising, scatter wood plains
thrown about roadside living in waste
What's one but trash you wave in wind,
upon your own castle the clutter
linger sores
Scarce inhabitant emptiness filled without space,
couldn't wait; trash across beauty
of nations scape
Like soul you trash, call for goodwill
Negligence to cleanliness is water run down leg,
laziness to bend, dirt washed from top down
Trash nation, your words does not speak highly wanting
to destroy integrity beauty in name of evil
Mounds of hills pipe poison dirt filter, environmental
green screams, fuel erupt ozone
Killing America for greater mankind existence, toxic,
poisoning of everything we feed to touch
Mashed up and burning.
I hate when I’m shopping and that happens.
Empty.
I never went home after that.
Hurts like popcorn in the microwave, burning.
Seething.
When I’m shopping for cooking utensils or things I can’t recall.
That I can’t recover in my bright eyes.
I’m in the store and there is clattering. Stop, slow motion.
And things like that.
I went to the garbage dump after that.
Tried to throw myself away.
An old banana peel grabbed my wrist-
Then tossed me back, and no one knows.
Don't take it personally
The reverberating silence
When you every a room
All in your head
Kids don't just bully
As you pick rotten fruit
From my hair
Asking me
What did I do
This sandy shore is mine, I am its vassal;
building my fort, I was much too facile.
Just as I finished, here came a passel,
a passel of beach possums, razzle-dazzle.
I'm not quittin', though it be a hassle;
possum trash'l be an awesome castle.
Poor old Mickey Mouse
Minnie asking for a house
dreams in the trash
they being short on cash
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
In moonlight's hush, beneath the elm,
A masked marauder stalks his realm.
With paws like whispers, eyes like coal,
He seeks the prize that fills his soul.
But lo! The bin—his ancient foe—
Stands smug, unyielding, sealed in woe.
Its lid, a tyrant, cold and tight,
Dares mock his hunger in the night.
"Have you forgotten?" he snarls with grace,
"The feast we shared, the sacred place?
You fed me once, you knew my name,
Now plastic locks deny my claim."
He leaps! He claws! A ballet grim,
A pirouette on garbage rim.
Banana peels and coffee grounds
Rain down like war drums' hollow sounds.
Neighbors wake to chaos born,
A furry tempest, rage and scorn.
Yet in his heart, a deeper ache—
Not trash, but trust, was theirs to break.
So if you see him, tail askew,
A poet wrapped in dumpster dew,
Know vengeance drives his nightly plan—
The raccoon scorned by a trash can.
it's so surprising to know that gorilla recognizes the trash bin
posters put digits, numbers not words, in what they call poem, trash write
Sea trash begone, as youth shall surge
with their passion and devotion
Debris where land and water merge
Sea trash begone!
Breakthrough solutions in motion
ending plastic pollution purge
Serene is a blue-green ocean
Unafraid to swim and submerge
inheritors, high echelon
Fallen baton cease and emerge
Sea trash begone!
A tsunami of black ash blankets half a world
Trash toadstool hoodoos, wastelandic pillage
and pollutant mucus ravishes lava villages
Draining is the amalgam mass at the end of the spectrum
Stone environs shock, unnatural landscapes
Polyethylene islands flushing the canvas
Carbon contaminant fumes flair in mid drift air
Virtually no place on Earth is free of the polymer fog
Foaming magma cascades over metallic mushroom roots
Spiny shoots sprout tentacles from rubber trees
Mercury and cadmium toxin leeches' groundwater
Above the quicksand are flying objects that pass as vultures
For a million magarican dollars I was greeted by a masked spacebot
Left on moonlit Luna's Lot are my collection of yin-yang art articles
Sorrow will wipe away your sacrifice,
treasures of the world will unlock and give blind fortune
nothing you get will test your patience and your greed
but suffer and tears in times of need.
Let go, stop the torture it is not about the fortune!!
Spear my love and rule my jealousy just because its cheap,
but not awake yet somewhere blind fate will call your bluff
unsettling and cruel, will stare you right in the face,
unlock your connections and see your own reflections,
find out who you are, are you one of us or,
have you fallen to low and swollen top 1%.
How big of the mirror do you need my friend of fortune
take a good look at your new refined clean look,
wipe your face find some piece and grace help your neighbor,
understand we all will stand under one roof one day
we all go to the same place darkness and nothingness
that's our fate, so don't hesitate but with effortless intent
fill that empty plate, this is the new fate, open the gate
cemetery is our home, this is just temporary, I am sorry.
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