In the Dump

The Dump of Unwanted Desire

By Big Frank Dickinson

Everything in this dump is a vestige
of desire used all up and thrown away.
Look at those smiles on the dumpers faces;
So pleased to let go of this crap and be gone.

Couches, one-eyed dolls and rusty old knives
Stacked among bits of cardboard and plastic.
Who would ever know they had once been desired;
Assured of the difference they’d make.

Well, they made no difference whatsoever.
Is the ache that spawned them gone also?
Is there a dump of unwanted desires?
Or are they recycled and used again?

What about lust, unrequited love, and hate;
Are they deposited in the same way?
As cardboard, plastic and unwanted junk;
Stacked in distant heaps dealt with by others.

Or do our desires have a life of their own.
Bubbling up in an endless stream,
Then latching onto us and having their way.
Perhaps it’s they that choose us not the other way round.

Then they release us in search of the new
Abandoning us in a heap of old yearns:
Left in a pile of unplugged emotions:

Tender feelings hardened next to hate gone out.