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Tipping Point
Tim Dooley
As the grabbing claw
digs into General Waste,
dust rises to our level.
We taste it at the back
of the throat, in the nose,
fanning it from our eyes.
From the boots of cars,
methodically, we lift
worn, damaged
– or just outdated –
consumer goods.
Threadbare carpets,
inkjet printers,
cardboard casings,
hard plastic toys
chipped crockery,
broken tools, video-
cassettes, virus-
checking software.
We empty bags of
paper into the pit.
Out come tumbling:
style magazines,
political manifestos,
football programmes,
workshopped poems,
unsent letters of love.
And this is not a metaphor.
The grabbing claw grabs on.
Tim Dooley is reviews and features editor of Poetry London and a tutor at The Poetry School. His collections include The Interrupted Dream (Anvil, 1985), Tenderness (Smith Doorstop, 2004), Keeping Time (Salt, 2008) Imagined Rooms (Salt, 2010).
Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter (wveditor@gmail.com)
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