The Trash Can

this is great, I just wrote two

poems I didn't like.

there is a trash can on this

computer.

I just moved the poems

over

and dropped them into

the trash can.

they're gone forever, no

paper, no sound, no

fury, no placenta

and then

just a clean screen

awaits you.

it's always better

to reject yourself before

the editors do.

especially on a rainy

night like this with

bad music on the radio.

and now--

I know what you're

thinking:

maybe he should have

trashed this

misbegotten one

also.

ha, ha, ha,

ha.

The light, perfectly balanced verse captures very well, the fluidity, almostI could say the liberation, that the computer affords the wordsmith -nothing is permanent unless you want it to be, erasing a word, a line, anentire poem is no harder than a click of a button.Words on paper have a definite inertia to them - the crossed out lines tracktheir way indelibly across the sheet, a visible and increasingly messyrecord of a work's revision history. Contrast the aesthetic freedom of no paper, no sound, no fury, no placenta and then just a clean screen awaits you.And the poem itself definitely reflects that freedom, the lines pouringforth with careless abandon until they reach a hilariously antipoeticconclusion that made me laugh out loud. A fitting ending to the theme, Ithink. Ha, ha, ha. Ha.