They’re here,

Lights flashing,

Hi-Viz loading

All the trash in-

To the belly of

The Beast

For her weekly

Roadside feast

On all the debris

Left outside of

The houses on

Each street.

Where in piles stacked

So very neat,

The Beast

Devours each tasty treat

Left in cans and

Inside jars,

And in boxes piled

Next to empty cars.

 

Her amber hue lights

The breaking dawn

Of this bleak

Pre-festive morn.

The Beast

Crawls ever nearer

As the winter sky

Grows clearer.

And the Hi-Viz

March beside

To launch an

Unceasing tide

Of crap and waste inside

Their mistress,

The Beast,

Who greedy devours

Drained tea bags

And moulding flowers

That she finds among

The towers

Of detritus left behind

By a single streets’ worth

Of mankind.

 

Then, turning she rolls away.

Her feasting here done for today.

But

The Beast

She will return

Because we are so slow to learn

For we land-fill

And we burn

Making smoke that

Rises high

And which clogs up the sky

Until the only light we find

Is of the blinking, orange kind

As,

Ever keen to feast,

Crawls slowly back

Our man-made

Beast.

 

Gavin Dimmock

December 17th, 2019