LIFE IN A REFUSE BIN

 

This ‘bit of fun’ with simple rhyming couplets, was prompted by my photograph (above), taken on the promenade at Sandsend, a small holiday resort, near Whitby, on the North Sea coast of Yorkshire.

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A refuse bin … A refuse bin

All life is in a refuse bin.

#  #  #

Amidst the rubbish and the tat
There lie a hat, a mat, a rat;
Daily Mail-wrapped fish and chips
Taco, shrimp and truffle dips;
Damaged shoes and flip-flops too;
Pair of pants that once were blue.
Ice cream cones and such detritus;
Discarded puffer for bronchitis.
Shells and seaweed in there, also
A print of ‘Blue Nude’ by Picasso.
Doll’s head, torso, and an arm;
Half a sixpence – lucky charm!
Apple peelings, apple cores,
Offcuts from old vinyl floors.
Broken pencil, bunch of keys,
Half a sandwich filled with cheese.
Old bus tickets, betting slips,
Laddered tights and broken zips.
Cigarette butts by the score.
Plastic bags just washed ashore.
Bric-a-brac, old junk and scrap;
Two hairnets, a baseball cap.
Flotsam, Jetsam, garbage, waste.
Can of worms, a jar of paste.
Empty tins that once held coke.
It really is beyond a joke.
Lubricant, petroleum jelly,
Whole salami from the deli.
Junkie’s needles, discarded syringe,
Vestige of an all-night binge.
All remnants of a life of sin
. . . All denizens of a refuse bin.

#

Clothes and food for any family
Enough to live on very happily.
But waste disposal at the beach
Cries out loud for a dose of bleach.
But soon all this will ‘go to waste’
Unfit for someone else’s taste.

#  #  #

But wait a moment, I can see
A scene as if it’s on TV.
A family playing in the sand
Oblivious in their own dreamland.
Quite unaware that they’re within
And central to a refuse bin.

#

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‘Age I do abhor thee’

Whilst the following rhyming couplets in no way describe my own experience of encroaching dotage, the verses are my attempt to express a view of the feelings and needs of a ‘grumpy old man’ contemplating his future, isolated by senility from his nearest and dearest.

These thoughts were generated by a re-reading of the madrigal verses, ‘Crabbed age and Youth’, attributed to Shakespeare, coupled with watching again an episode of Victor Meldrew’s character in the TV comedy, ‘One foot in the Grave’.

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CRABBED AGE

(On Ageing Disgracefully)

So who can we say will look after us
When we get old and cantankerous?

Can we rely on those near and dear?
Or are we forsaken, alone in our fear?

We who were once so unstinting and kind
Do we not earn at last true peace of mind?

BUT . . .

All is not clear . . . To be truly sincere, 
The man I was then is no longer here.

FOR . . .

I’ve changed, and not for the better
I’ve lost it now – down to the letter.

No one can know the way I now feel.
I’ve got the worst of Faust’s done deal.

Bad-tempered with age; rancorous, unkind,
Left, with my youth, all my humour behind.

My bilious mien, my irascible stance
Will never win friends or my nature enhance.

I’m old now and weary and decidedly bent
My spirit and mind to perdition I’ve sent.

Choleric, petty, liverish, sickly,
A curmudgeon, malcontent, surly and prickly.

I’m grumpy, I know, and I’m sad.
I’m thoughtless and tetchy and bad.

I’m full of regret and I hurt,
Bombastic and bitter and curt.

I know when I’m right, but not when I’m wrong,
I know where I live, not where I belong.

Selfish, caustic, hurtful, snide,
This present-day world I cannot abide.

My life is defiled, and I’m full of bile;
A fossilised drone, sterile and vile.

NEVERTHELESS . . .

I need you beside me all the day long.
Don’t tell me you’re tired – I know that you’re wrong.

I remember those vows that we once affirmed
When the future was all that you and I yearned.

But I’m near to the end, so I’m taking a bow,
Who once was your soul-mate Is only a shell now.

The love that once held you so closely to me
Has gone since I’ve grown to be bitchy and gloomy

I know that you don’t want to stay any longer
I’m just in your way now, it’s you who is stronger.

I’d hoped I could ask you to restore my dreams
But time has dealt us its last blow it seems.

SO . . .

I relinquish my hold, and consign all my sorrows
To a life that defeats me – and all our tomorrows.

The illustrations are from the Irish illustrator, Harry Clarke’s, 1921 edition of Goethe’s ‘FAUST’.

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