It was wire in grandad's day
piles of it in his fill-in dump
Then binder twine for decades
And now this raffia junk
Plastic toothbrushes, plastic chairs
I take my coffee in plastic cups
Scoop my yoghurt with plastic spoons
Plastic hose fittings, plastic rakes
Plastic cord to cut weeds and grass
Plastic nappies on baby's arse
My dad played with mechano sets
My kids pile up plastic leggo
The family fights over the plastic remote
for the plastic telly with its plastic people
Plastic radios and earphones on our heads
Plastic devices, plastic partners
to come with us to our beds
Or if flesh and blood,
probably plastically enhanced
The bread comes in plastic, string bags are gone
Gladwrapped lunches, shrink wrapped chops
Tupperware tubs and laminex benchtops
Sponges on a squeegie, no more mops
No more fine old fountain pens
Now it's plastic biros
Vinyl records, vinyl shirts
Plastic gumboots, plastic raincoats
And plastic money of course
Will they put our ashes in a plastic urn
or will our weeping kin
put us out one Wednesday night
in a plastic wheelie bin?
© Phillip Mahnken 2000
3 comments:
Hi Phil , just read your poem , very Plastic , I liked it , It
flowed beautifully.
I felt you enjoyed writing that. I could almost hear you saying those
words. ... Tomorrow is another day!
nite, nite, Joy...
Beyond plastic, what come next? Disposable world, disposable values, where is the love,?
cheers Trevor.
In response to Trevor
Disposable world
Grumpy old man stage
I young'ns more harshly judge
than I would have wanted
to be at that age.
But the values
of insidious older manipulators
blithely wrecking cultures
laying waste the world
do really frighten me.
Someone needs to tell them
- no, they know -
the planet is a not-for-profit concern
non-returnable, no exchange.
© Phil Mahnken 21 March 2008
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