i’m an island of trash.
my friends call me trash island.
they throw charity dinners to rid the world of me.
how many nonprofits does it take before you get the joke?
the punchline:
my friends are here to kill me.
the liberals are out to get me.
my republican comrades won’t admit i exist.
my island family having been rescued from me long ago.
no trash man is a trash island unto himself.
all trash has to come from somewhere.
the lesson we learn is that it was within us all the time.
twas me you were simultaneously ignoring and looking for.
like the footsteps on the sand.
before the floods came.
before you tossed me to the trash fish.
fed me to the trash seagulls.
like a used condom.
to impregnate the sea.
with all my trash babies.
every little poisonous plankton of me.
and my collection of renaissance poems.
each crinkled up page of rebirth floating along with me wherever the tide will take us.
no man is an island, so sayeth john donne.
to which i sayeth back:
some men are nigh more than trash.
-- Drevlow is EIC of BULL and poet laureate of bull. You can check out more of his bull stuff at thedrevlow-olsonshow.com or on twitter, insta, face, bsky, & threads @thedrevlow.