The Trash Can
this is great, I just wrote two
poems I didn't like.
there is a trash can on this
computer.
I just moved the poems
over
and dropped them into
the trash can.
they're gone forever, no
paper, no sound, no
fury, no placenta
and then
just a clean screen
awaits you.
it's always better
to reject yourself before
the editors do.
especially on a rainy
night like this with
bad music on the radio.
and now--
I know what you're
thinking:
maybe he should have
trashed this
misbegotten one
also.
ha, ha, ha,
ha.
The light, perfectly balanced verse captures very well, the fluidity, almostI could say the liberation, that the computer affords the wordsmith -nothing is permanent unless you want it to be, erasing a word, a line, anentire poem is no harder than a click of a button.Words on paper have a definite inertia to them - the crossed out lines tracktheir way indelibly across the sheet, a visible and increasingly messyrecord of a work's revision history. Contrast the aesthetic freedom of no paper, no sound, no fury, no placenta and then just a clean screen awaits you.And the poem itself definitely reflects that freedom, the lines pouringforth with careless abandon until they reach a hilariously antipoeticconclusion that made me laugh out loud. A fitting ending to the theme, Ithink. Ha, ha, ha. Ha.
