NaPoWriMo Day 9: Wastepaper lives

Hi, I’m doing NaPoWriMo on napowrimo.net. The challenge is to write a poem a day in April. Day 9’s poem is a concrete poem in the shape of the object.

This is the prompt for the April 9 poem:

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a ‘concrete’ poem – a poem in which the lines and words are organised to take a shape that reflects in some way the theme of the poem. Your poem can take a simple shape, like a box or ball, or maybe you’ll have fun trying something more elaborate, like a Christmas tree.

Wastepaper lives 

A banana skin adorns the circular rim of my bin,

Sunshine coat, lemon-squidge nakedness.

I pause to wonder where it has been,

Why I spurned it and left it here to ruin.

Empty moisturiser, an ode to sensitive skin.

Sheer sweet wrapper, fruity bit eaten fast.

A panty pad stuck upon the curve of the wire

In memory of my back and belly’s hot period fire.

Dash of a phone number, bystander of a friend’s last lust.

Toilet roll cellophane – proof I salvaged some in Lockdown;

Who knew the Holy Grail would end up down the loo?

Empty box of earplugs, cardboard dented and blue.

Crumpled receipts, all that maths making a fuss,

Stub of a pencil hiding out in a toothpaste box.

On colourful squares, torn plasters tending

Scribbles of writing bereft of an ending.

Cotton wool balls and gatherings of dust,

Hair and spent tissues screwed up and worn.

Suspect sock, holed up, with a lost tale no doubt

And a pen with no ink, where time just dripped out.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 9, 2020