Landfill (a poem): 10th Sept 2024

 I've never posted a poem before. But then I thought, hey, why not? So here are some lines I wrote last night. Landfill.

That brand new coffee maker in its box

The pedal bike you sometimes get to ride

The Merry-Christmas-music-playing socks

The blanket chest that someone left outside

The candelabra and the cordless drill

The painting of a piglet in a sty

The matching set of cases

And the shoes that lost their laces

And the bucket with a hole

And the little plastic troll

Well they’ll all end up in landfill

Yes they’ll all end up in landfill, yes

they’ll all end up in landfill by and by

 

The 3D television

That was wholly your decision

You couldn’t quite envision

Why it gathered such derision

But one thing you can very clearly say

It will end up in a landfill one fine day

The foot spa and the heated hostess tray

The banjo and the yellow plastic sleigh

The printer that always seemed to jam

The winter coat, the retro children’s pram,

The assegai, the ink supply,

The faded regimental tie

They’ll all end up in landfill

Yes they’ll all end up in landfill, yes

they’ll all end up in landfill by and by

 

Well there may be little trinkets hidden somewhere in your home

That might survive the disregard of others yet to come

There might be space on a junkshop shelf

For those dumbbell weights

Or that Christmas elf

But don’t expect the future to

Make room for plastic caribou

Or that trendy bomber jacket

That cost a blooming packet

Or those solar lights or stunter kites

Or cricket whites

Or body tights

Say what you will, yet they will still

Go in the spill … and why?

Because they all end up in landfill by and by.

 

The green enamel shower tray

That didn’t match the loo

The tangled box of cables where you don’t know what they do

The hardened glue, the leaky shoe,

The shirt you wore for that interview,

The microwave, the aftershave

The wristband from the Oxford rave

The bass guitar the pull up bar

The items from the school bazaar

Their days now surely numbered are

You’ll load them one day in the car

And drive them to the local tip

And chuck them gladly in the skip

Where unloved things are left to die

And off they go to landfill

Yes off they go to landfill

For they’ll all end up in landfill by and by.

 

Every carpet ever woven

Every fridge and every oven

Every book and every toy

Every box of Christmas joy

Every single DVD

And every tiny bonsai tree

And every leather backed settee

And every helium balloon

And every card that plays a tune

And every tool in ever shed

And every mattress, every bed

Every strimmer, every mower,

Every useless autumn blower,

Every screw and every nail

And every package through the mail

And everything you’ll ever buy

They don’t have long before they lie

Lost, abandoned and forgotten

Deep in landfills dank and rotten

No one there to wish them all goodbye

For all of them ..  and me and you

When all our days on earth are through

will all end up in landfill

Yes we’ll all end up in landfill, yes

we’ll all end up in landfill by and by.