I saw the icons of my generation trashed, pounded, run over.
Sunlight, Madge, we were soaking in it. That box that held our kisses
was flat. Lifestyle came undone so that life was hanging on by the grate
and style underfoot. What happened and is it everywhere?
“The future is in plastics,” said the man in The Graduate and it is.
One night in the last century, I dreamt I sat on a high wall an open book
on the ground and the sea rose. Be careful the book! I called.
The water came anyway. What is precious and who cares and how much?
To each her own footwear in the apocalypse. It’s not just the litter it’s the latter.
But some people notice. Someone took these pictures.
In Australia, fire eats the houses and the vines in California.
In Venice, someone’s couch was swept into the water, someone’s tombstone.
Tourists looted the Vuitton store and swam away with the goods.
Tom Waits is not dead yet so I ask him what am I seeing?
Misery’s the river of the soul, he says. Everybody row.
The young are out mopping because there’s no school
when there’s no school. And the old, well, it doesn’t matter how tired and dazed you are
when you’re up to your knees. All you can do is wait. The tide will turn.
Sunlight. The real thing. Until the next siren. Fire and water and so on.
Sisyphus that old trooper. Sisyphus is us.
♦
Ronna Bloom is the author of six books of poetry. Her most recent book, The More, was published by Pedlar Press in 2017 and long listed for the City of Toronto Book Award. Her poems have been recorded by the CNIB and translated into Spanish, Bangla, and Chinese. Ronna is Poet in Community to the University of Toronto and Poet in Residence in the Health, Arts and Humanities Programme. She runs workshops and gives talks on poetry, spontaneity, and awareness through writing.
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The Litter I See Project 
Wonderful!
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this is a wonderful poem. thanks.
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