George Murdock - Burning Trash

The sawtooth bucket
closes on a litter of garbage
It grasps in its dented steel jaws
the remains of a thriving civilization
a civilization of plastic metamorphisis
a drowning tamponade
of feckless endeavor
which has become excretion
Everything of consumable imagination
is flexed in those jaws
a clenched toothed antithesis
of
milk curdled in corners
popcorn packing and cake boxes
floating back down to the pit
like souless birds trying to
rejoin some storm broken flock
and with a turmoil of colors and filth
the fuel hopper is stoked
with the pride of Madison avenue
I am assured the plume
rising from the towering phallic stack
is nothing more than water vapor

George Murdock

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/burning-trash/