Taking Out the Garbage Poem

The digital age presents us with all sorts of new scenarios. I used to not believe a poem that I had written on the computer didn't really exist until I could print it out, or write it down. I've gotten over this, and now i almost feel a poem isn't real until I have archived it digitally. Detached Retinas is my second book of poetry, published in 1997, and it only exists in book form, and on scans I uploaded for Google. But since they are scans, I have no way to copy and paste them. I'm going to post a few here over the next few weeks. 

The Garbage

Hunched over the scandal 
You've called me to clean up,
Because I keep to myself,
Because my degree is in apathy,
Because what's in my eyes
Is a lie.
The blood is the easy part,
An acquired taste,
And the body more easily
Disposed of than conceived.
Because I love you.
Because I hate everyone
You hate.
Because someone must take
Out the garbage.

Detached Retinas, 1997, by Thomas L. Vaultonburg. Publishing was much different then. This book went from my journals, to a laser printer, to Book Masters in Ohio in three days. It came back two weeks later. Offset printing. For  some inconceivable reason, I have insisted on doing the covers of ll my books. This one is by far the worst.

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