Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Plastic Bags

“ A whale just died after consuming more than 80 plastic bags. A whale!”
― Shenita Etwaroo 

"Beat Plastic Pollution!"

Today is UN World Environment Day: 5 June 2019.

I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth. Pete Townshend
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/plastic

I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth. Pete Townshend
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/plastic

Description of the Fundamental Cause of Plastic Pollution.

Image Courtesy of UPSTREAM

“I'm not out there suggesting that we should ban every plastic product. But there are some whose environmental costs exceed their utility, and the [plastic] bag is one of them.”
― Susan Freinkel, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story

 “So many things seemed to come in plastic bags now that it was difficult to keep track of them. The main thing was not to throw it away carelessly, better still to put it away in a safe place, because there was a note printed on it which read 'To avoid danger of suffocation keep this wrapper away from babies and children'."
― Barbara Pym, Quartet in Autumn

 

Midweek Motif ~ Plastic Bags

So.  I still use plastic bags quite often, mostly for food and for keeping books dry next to my water bottle.  My friends use plastic bags to pick up what their dogs leave outside.  What would life be like without plastic bags? I saw one dance in the film "American Beauty," I imagined them as separate beings in "Flights" by Olga Tokarczuk: 

     “Now I see them from the window of the bus, these airborne anemones, whole packs of them, roaming the desert. Individual specimens cling on tight to brittle little desert plants, fluttering noisily--perhaps this is the way they communicate. . . ."
   

Your Challenge:  Consider the immanent death of the plastic bag and imagine it into a new poem.  Maybe you are writing an ELEGY, maybe an ODE.

I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth. Pete Townshend
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/plastic

Sermon to the Trash

By Richard Schiffman

Everything passes, said the Buddha,
and I saw it myself on the river– 

tennis balls and condoms,
waterlogs and dead dogs,
styrofoam battleships,
the mastless schooner of a rubber sandal,
subaqueous plastic bags
rippling their ghoulish curtains,
a belly down, drowned waterfowl
legs splayed, plucked clean by the waves.
But what the Buddha didn’t say
is that everything returns
a few hours later, when the current flips direction,
shuttling eternally in the limbo of the tides.
. . . .

(Read the rest HERE.)

Fifteen Million Plastic Bags

Adrian Mitchell

I was walking in a government warehouse
Where the daylight never goes.
I saw fifteen million plastic bags
Hanging in a thousand rows.

Five million bags were six feet long
Five million bags were five foot five
Five million were stamped with Mickey Mouse
And they came in a smaller size.

Were they for guns or uniforms
Or a kinky kind of party game?
. . . .
(Read the rest HERE.)

Beneath Carnival Lights

 

Ben Kingsley

You can’t stop morning
from melting plastic bags.

100 other goldfish twisty-tied
up and dreading a hot sunrise.

You’re in mourning together
for the old 20+ gallon tank.

For the familiarity of the green leaf
that released you from an orange egg sack.

How’d you find yourself
in one of these again?

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE.)

 

Gracious Bag by GorillaSushi at Wiki Commons

 Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community— (Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Bridge. )

 

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ War & Peace

“War does not determine who is right – only who is left” — Bertrand Russell

SOURCE

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality….I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” — Dr. Martin Luther King

       Midweek Motif ~War & Peace

The World War I (1914 – 1918) ended with the establishment of the League of Nations — with the aim to explore the possibilities how wars could be avoided.

            

Yet armed conflicts among nations continue and Peace remains elusive as ever, thanks to the belligerent nations. Life does not matter!!!!

Raise your voice in this context.

1914

by Wilfred Owen

War broke: and now the Winter of the world

With perishing great darkness closes in.

The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,

Is over all the width of Europe whirled,

Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled

Are all Art’s ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin

Famines of thought and feeling. Love’s wine’s thin.

The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.

For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,

And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,

An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,

A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.

But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need

Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.

Earth Is Frenzied With Fury

               (A Song)

 by Rabindranath Tagore

Earth is frenzied with fury; in constant vile conflict;

Awfully crooked its path; tangled in wily greed.

All sore souls pray for the new birth of a Savior

Save us O Great Life with Thine life giving words

Let bloom the love-lotus with ever flowing nectar

              

O the ever Serene, Free and Holy presence

Let your Mercy absolve Earth of its stains

O Generous One initiate onto the firm renouncing path

O Supreme Mendicant claim our ego as your alms

Let all forget their cares, woes; delusion be severed

Let knowledge as the radiant sun dawn in its splendor

Let all world gain life, the blind receive sight

O the ever Serene, Free and Holy presence

Let your Mercy absolve Earth of its stains

The grieving heart of Mankind is smoldering with agony

Worn out in treasure hunt the discontents are aggrieved

Lands far and wide flaunt their blood-tilak* of filth

Sound your conch of well being and bliss

Touching all with Thy right hand to bless

Play Thy auspicious tune to the rhythm of Grace

O the ever Serene, Free and Holy presence

Let your Mercy absolve Earth of its stains

                    Translated by Sumana Roy)

To All In The So Called Defence Industry

by Adrian Mitchell

Arms trade workers, here's an early warning 
You might wake up tomorrow morning 
And find that this is the glorious day 
When all your jobs will just melt away 
Because the people of the world are going to make sure 
There'll be no more, no more, no more war 
So now's the time to switch your occupation 
From dealing in death and desolation 
Don't hang around now you've been told 
The international murder trade's about to fold 
You won't have to maim, you won't have to kill, 
You can use your brain and use your skill. 
Peace needs workers of all kinds- 
Make artificial limbs instead of landmines. 
Tricycles instead of tridents, 
Violins instead of violence, 
Lifeboats, hospitals, medicine, drains, 
Food and toys and buses and trains- 
Come on, there's plenty of work to be done 
If we're going to make peace for everyone. 

                 

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

                (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~Independence)

The Living Dead

~ Honouring our poetic ancestors ~

Leaflets

Outside the plasma supermarket
I stretch out my arm to the shoppers and say
“Can I give you one of these?”

I give each of them a leaf from a tree.

The first shopper thanks me.
The second puts the leaf in his mack pocket where his wife won’t see.
The third says she is not interested in leaves. She looks like a mutilated willow.
The fourth says “Is it art?” I say that it is a leaf.
The fifth looks through his leaf and smiles at the light beyond.
The sixth hurls down his leaf and stamps it till dark purple mud oozes through.
The seventh says she will press it in her album.
The eighth complains that it is an oak leaf and says he would be on my side if I were also handing out birch leaves, apple leaves, privet leaves and larch leaves. I say that it is a leaf.
The ninth takes the leaf carefully and then, with a backhand fling, gives it its freedom.
It glides, following surprise curving alleys through the air.
It lands. I pick it up.
The tenth reads both sides of the leaf twice and then says: “Yes, but it doesn’t say who we should kill.”

But you took your leaf like a kiss.

The tell me that on Saturdays
You can be seen in your own city centre
Giving away forests, orchards, jungles.

– Adrian Mitchell (1932-2008)

"Adrian Mitchell."
The Famous People website.
(accessed May 25 2017) 

Adrian Mitchell, English poet, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, journalist and children's writer, was one of England's foremost performance poets who sometimes had audiences of thousands. 

He was known particularly as an anti-bomb poet. An activist and revolutionary in the context of being a committed pacifist, he was considered the voice of the Left and often used satire – but he also sought to uplift people's spirits with his poetry. This one, I think, does both. The satire is there in the people's different reactions to being given a leaf. And overall, particularly in its closing lines, the poem makes me feel lifted up, inspired, happier.

If ever there was a time for an anti-bomb poet, this is it, after the explosion in Manchester. But this poem makes the point obliquely by focusing on Life. How hard it is, it seems to say, for us to recognise and appreciate the gift of life. That lack must surely be one of the things that leads to terrorist attacks. 

What can we helpless citizens do in the face of such horrors? Little, perhaps, in the way of direct action. But we can reaffirm our commitment to life, love and humanity, as the people of Manchester are now doing.  We can raise our voices, poetic or otherwise, in support of this commitment. And we can encourage ourselves by reading poems which have tenderness as well as strength. 

You can find out details of his life and work at Wikipedia, where I found this lovely tribute:

"Adrian", said fellow-poet Michael Rosen, "was a socialist and a pacifist who believed, like William Blake, that everything human was holy. That's to say he celebrated a love of life with the same fervour that he attacked those who crushed life. He did this through his poetry, his plays, his song lyrics and his own performances. Through this huge body of work, he was able to raise the spirits of his audiences, in turn exciting, inspiring, saddening and enthusing them.... He has sung, chanted, whispered and shouted his poems in every kind of place imaginable, urging us to love our lives, love our minds and bodies and to fight against tyranny, oppression and exploitation."

His obituary in The Guardian, by Michael Kustow, said:

The poet and playwright Adrian Mitchell, in whom the legacies of Blake and Brecht coalesce with the zip of Little Richard and the swing of Chuck Berry, has died of heart failure at the age of 76. In his many public performances in this country and around the world, he shifted English poetry from correctness and formality towards inclusiveness and political passion.

(Wikipedia also refers you to several other obituaries.)

An article at the Poetry Archive says:

Mitchell was committed to a form of poetry that welcomes as many people as possible - he was, perhaps, best known for saying that "Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people." Thus his work deals with recognisable subjects in clear, modern language, and can revel in strong rhythms, drawn as often from the blues and pop music as from the poetic canon.

His output was prolific. His several book pages at Amazon begin here. And you can listen to his own excellent recitals of some of his poems on YouTube.

Material shared in 'The Living Dead' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, where applicable (older poems may be out of copyright).