By: Miep Rowan O'Brien

Miep Rowan O'Brien 3 months ago on Wordpress

by Miep Rowan O’Brien and Gary Nickelson; circa 2004

Dumpster Diaries

Early, vegetables

Broken, dented, disheveled

Soon, fading flowers.

He is tall, she short

From inside, she passes him

Lower fruit strata.

Rumbling, squealing doors

Harbingers of hopefulness

Make our ears perk up.

There are protocols

At dumpster intersections

It’s first come, first served.

Baseball cap lady

Ubiquitous, obnoxious

Hardened retiree.

Often, twelve roses

Sometimes, several dozen

Once, even hundreds.

One day the meat truck

Came to get the viscera

They left a shrimp trail.

Steel hooks are useful

A clever one, well hidden

Serves for so many.

SUV’s arrive

Inside, folks with picking tools

No one is immune.

His cigarette hangs

From his left hand, while reaching

Chicken on the right.

Every day he comes

Coughing and bellowing comes

To get his chicken.

Cats festoon the wall

Watch with curiosity

Waiting for handouts.

Looking late for meat

He rages, clatters, berserk

He lights the Dumpster.

He lit the matches

He dropped them in the Dumpster

Howling in the night.

A pyre of flame shot

From the top of the dumpster

The police came soon.

The cop car wailing

A three a.m. hot pursuit

Under my window.

Today, signs went up

“Go away, diggers,” they said

But soon, they were gone.

Baseball cap woman

Calls herself a trashdigger

Yelling at no one.

Box of little birds

Discarded doves, late of signs

No children allowed.

Dead cat, in a box

Plastic-wrapped, to be buried

In a kind of sea.

This week, a carton

Of orchids, in water slips

Prom disappointments.

Bees get lost in bags

Emerging, sticky, humbled

Flee to my garden.

I trashpick scraps of

Produce for my compost pile

What must people think?

Broken-toothed, he gapes

When I say “Hello” to him

And tell him my name.

Slumped over, he waits

One more rock falls from the wall

The chicken’s way late.

Peppermint ice cream

Barely melting, just left there

How mysterious. ... See all content Hide content

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Bruce Whealton 3 months ago on Wordpress

Thanks, Ana, for posting my poem and for announcing this!

Bruce

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