General Waste Comes To Town

‘General Waste’ … Photos – WHB – Surrey, UK, 2017

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GENERAL WASTE COMES TO TOW

When General Waste first came to town
He brought a squad of others;
They came to clean us up and were
His military brothers.

They stand on corners, pavements edge,
In regimental fashion;
They’re smart and very business-like
And do their job with passion.

Intent on clearing up the streets
Of this, our unkempt town,
These sentinels of conscience stand
And scold us with their frown.

Receptacles of all our litter,
Thriving on our waste;
And if we dare to ignore them
They treat us with distaste.

They’ll tell the world of our disgrace
They’ll make sure we are booked,
And when the final reckoning comes
That won’t be overlooked.

‘General Waste’ … Photos – WHB – Surrey, UK, 2017

Life In A Refuse Bin

Photo: WHB

A refuse bin … A refuse bin
All life is in a refuse bin.

* * *

Amidst the rubbish and the tat
There lies 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;
No legs in sight – sound the alarm!
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.
Junk and scrap for ever more.
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.

These remnants of a night of sin
. . . All denizens of a refuse bin.

Clothes and food for any family
Enough to live on very happily.
Soon all of this will ‘go to waste’
Unfit for someone else’s taste.
And waste disposal at the beach
Really does cry out for bleach.

# # #

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.

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

The Ballad of the Fatberg

Fatberg – Fatberg, Growing so fast;
Fatberg – Fatberg, Growing so fast;
Please don’t tell them where I am
They’re sure to set up a webcam.

I’ve made my way along this river
Accepting all from every giver
Now I’m stuck – a great fat ball.
Full of gunge and ten feet tall.

Mounds of wet-wipes, cooking fat.
Now you know what happens to that.
Rolled into one gigantic ball,
Big as the goddammed Albert Hall.

They say how many of us exist
In pipes and rivers in our midst.
Across our fair and pleasant land
Disposed of waste … Ain’t it grand!

When they’ve dispersed my fat and grease
all those wet wipes, every piece
Then at last I’ll meet my end
But then the next one will descend

And when dissolved, where do we go?
Why, into the sea then, don’t you know?
That great big cess pool in the ocean,
Unlikely to stir your dulled emotions. 

A FATBERG is a congealed mass in a sewer system formed by the combination of non-biodegradable solid matter, such as wet wipes, and congealed grease or cooking fat. Fatbergs became a problem in the 2010s in England, because of ageing Victorian sewers and the rise in usage of disposable cloths. Wikipedia

GENERAL WASTE … Take 2

GENERAL WASTE… Take 2

Now General Waste was a military man.
Yes, a military man was he.
He’d led a life
So full of strife
He knew not where to be.

But when he retired he took a post
As the village waste collector.
He said with a sigh,
“I might as well try,
I’ll be good as a street protector.”

This post he took as a garbage man,
A rum old job to choose.
He wasn’t bitter
Collecting litter,
He’d nothing much to lose.

He was so used to being obeyed,
He loved issuing orders,
“Now don’t drop that,
You little brat”,
“Or I’ll march you to headquarters.”

But then one day he met another,
A refuse collector she.
So full of beans,
A lass of means
And soon the two became ‘We’.

They did their jobs together now,
He a spry street sweeper,
While she picked waste,
Not to his taste,
Saying “I’m not my husband’s keeper.”

But when at last their jobs were done,
They went home to their cottage.
She called him “Sir”,
He cooked for her,
Their favourite – egg and sausage.

But one fine day she said to him.
“I’ve got a swelling tummy.
It might be that,
Just fancy that,
I’m going to be a mummy.”

Well general Waste was taken aback,
“You mean I’ll be a daddy?
At my age now
I can’t see how
I’ll cope with a little laddy.”

But when he paused and gave it thought,
He decided better of it.
“Might not be bad,
That little lad,
I might just learn to love it.”

Now General Waste, his wife and son,
Derive exceeding pleasure,
As, with great joy,
Man, wife and boy,
They pick up waste together.

These verses were, in fact, preceded by a similar light-hearted poem about the General which I wrote and published on this blog nearly a year ago.  If you wish to read this earlier effort of mine you will find it at . . . 

 ‘General Waste Comes To Town’