Friday, September 19, 2014

Finding poetry in Queens trash


From [cutting the cord] by Matthew Kremer:

in my experience, new yorkers
seem to have an unarticulated
and unappreciated tradition
of substituting ordinary
shopping bags for
regular trash bags.
i know the process:
you make a huge stash
under the sink, which
builds day-by-day and
covers your cleaning
products, enough that
the collection discourages
the act of cleaning at all.
around once a day, you
bend half-way over
and stretch your hand
into the assortment,
feeling around for
fine distinctions
between grocery
and mall-grade plastic,
and use the one you've
settled on for the category
of needs that ensue.
i would like to
see some trash bag
statistics in the metro
region in the effort to
corroborate this hunch,
but where would i look?
but it is likely in the more
apartment-centric corridors
this thing exists--not in
communities around flushing-
corona park or the waterfronts.

7 comments:

FlooshingRezident said...

I know where that picture was taken!

Anonymous said...

I can't remember the last time I bough trash bags and I've lived here all my life.

georgetheatheist said...

Isn't it time
And declare a crime,
Issue a fine,
(More than a dime
-Even more than nine!)
To poems that
Daren't rhyme?

(A-A-A-A-A-B-A)

Anonymous said...

Red bags from the Chinese stores in Flu
Shing!

R.A. Zimmernan said...

The words do not rhyme,
but it is no crime.
Credit is due
for words that are true.
Let it be said before we grow older
A poem is in the mind of the beholder.
It's what the writer wants it to be,
Don't you see?

georgetheatheist said...

The words do not rhyme,
but it is no crime.
Credit is due
for words that are true.
Let it be said before we grow older
A poem is in the mind of the beholder.
It's what the writer wants it to be,
Don't you see?

- BURMA SHAVE

(A-A,B-B,C-C,D-D, . . . - F!!!!)

Anonymous said...

Looks like a typical Flooshing spot. Lovely smell, I'll bet.