Trash Talk
Hard to even imagine the depth of darkness
there behind our mud skies, the coal fog.
So many of our stars today are really trash
floating loose in orbit. Where can we look
where we have not strewn our broken toys?
Everest is covered in dead bodies
and oxygen bottles, the Pacific a plastic stew,
the Sea of Tranquility a parking lot.
Even Jezero Crater on Mars is a scrapyard.
No need for signs to announce, "WE WERE HERE":
who could miss the human debris?
And when the raptured reach Heaven with all its
gifts, amusements, feasts and fireworks,
will they magically lose their profligacy? If humans
are indeed created in God's image, perhaps he has
already crumpled our blueprint and tossed it
over his shoulder, not caring where it lands.
there behind our mud skies, the coal fog.
So many of our stars today are really trash
floating loose in orbit. Where can we look
where we have not strewn our broken toys?
Everest is covered in dead bodies
and oxygen bottles, the Pacific a plastic stew,
the Sea of Tranquility a parking lot.
Even Jezero Crater on Mars is a scrapyard.
No need for signs to announce, "WE WERE HERE":
who could miss the human debris?
And when the raptured reach Heaven with all its
gifts, amusements, feasts and fireworks,
will they magically lose their profligacy? If humans
are indeed created in God's image, perhaps he has
already crumpled our blueprint and tossed it
over his shoulder, not caring where it lands.
Tom Barlow is an Ohio writer of poetry, short stories and novels. His work has appeared in journals including They Said, Trampoline, Ekphrastic Review, Voicemail Poetry, Hobart, Tenemos, Redivider, The North Dakota Quarterly, The New York Quarterly, The Modern Poetry Quarterly, and many more. See more at tombarlowauthor.com.