Shades of Junk

Junk in school
Junk on the street
Junk is lurking
every place
that people meet
There’s nowhere safe
Can you stand the heat?
Best be cool
and fast on your feet
Junk that cheats
and is hard to beat

Junk piling up
all over the place
Landfills full
of fetid waste
A natural habitat
for the human race?
Cockroaches and rats
are where junk’s at
Junk is ‘it’ in cyberspace
Junk all loaded up
on the internet
catfishing a flunk
who’s breadcrumbing
the hungry junk
Honesty and integrity
all gone kaput
with junk that’s funk
and goes kerplunk
What the junk?!

A trunk load of junk
calling for submission
engineered with precision
to enslave the submissive
keeping hearts
and minds captive
in a dank dirty prison

Another old relic
from the Junk museum
that self serving politician
Drunk on junk
all wrapped in plastic
upon a rickety podium
giving it a tweet
talking the junk
Hellbent and spiked
like a cosbied drink
Funded and endorsed
by a subterranean pulpit
all the while ignoring
an alarm bell ringing
taking us to the brink
of a planet warming
where petrochemical junk
just keeps on flowing

Junk out of sight
Junk micturating
from a great height
upon the shuffling throng
When junk makes right
you can’t go wrong
Junk opinions
everybody’s got one
From the cradle
to the grave
there’s nowhere to hide
Junk don’t behave
and is never on your side

Junk keeps on happening
Junk is ever in fashion
worn with pride
and disposable passion
As junk calls the tune
all style and grace
may junk be your fortune
and forever in your face

All too grim
and beyond the pale
a mysterious chunk
of alien junk
struck dumb and numb
in a fairy tale
Humanity abducted
and locked in the trunk
on a messy trail
by some or other
cosmic punk
orchestrating the junk
Like being conducted
somewhere ’round midnight
by a felonious monk
holding junk tight
Junk that floats
where hopes are sunk
Dangerous junk
Junk home grown
Junk imported
The meaning of Junk
is hotly debated
Junk being poured over
where trees once grew
May the junk be with
and not against you

Junk on T.V.
Junk on credit
Get the latest model
You won’t regret it
The junkie celebrity
gives a guarantee
And all that extra junk
That comes for free!
Humans forsaken
charity forgotten
Has junk become
the greedy reality
of all things rotten?
Where junk
strikes quickly
without mercy
and conscience free
Stay tuned in
Be tuned out
to a place where pity
walks the plank
in the Big Crapple
that Big Sewer City

Junk in body
like crumbs in bed
Junk being pumped
from heart to head
Voices howling
Words are broken
Truth is scarce
and seldom spoken
Junk that grows
Junk that flows
Junk underfoot
and between your toes
The sky is smoking
The Earth is choking
That chemical fog
even a junkyard dog
can tell by the smell
of a cosmos combusting
Just follow your nose
You don’t need
no garbage man
to know which way
the junk wind blows

Junk in space
till the end of days
Space junk orbiting
through a toxic haze
Islands of platic
floating out of place
Four horsemen riding
Amazing disgrace
is soon approaching
The harbingers
of grand funk junk
Is it ever too late?
Is all hope sunk?
What is the real deal?
Who is the real thing?
Is it ever too late
to start recycling?

Junk
that prevaricates
Junk
that oscillates
Ophidian junk
that dances in the dark
like wriggling snakes
Junk glorified
Justice falsified
On the hunt for junk
mall shoppers
never satisfied
As rivers
of effluence delivers
all that glitters
Palava Amanhã
So junk gets richer
upon a golden trail
of plastic from China
Yet the more get poorer
Like piles
of junk mail
thrown out
with the litter
Junk is in the eye
of the garbage disposer
Junk dropping bombs
across the border
A world of junk
well out of order

Chasing
the junk
of a golden dragon
the Junk Man commeth
ever so charming
With the bonds of junk
that he’s been selling
Junk jewellery hanging
from the neck
of the Bling King
I get by
and a little high
on the sweet junk
he’s been pushing
Too cool and cruel
for Sunday School
Mr. Mojo rising
Lawyers lying
Bankers swindling
Big business bribing
Integrity dwindling
Honesty disappearing
Politicians high flying
taking the golden pass
Taking the secretary
on junkets first class
The need to exceed
with the largesse of greed
For whom the junk tolls
hell’s doorbells
soon be ringing
Junk has become
the next wave contagion
takeaway plastic
now filling the ocean
Where there is life
there be junk … but
is it ever too late
to start recycling?

The Juggernaut of Junk
expands and exploits
That gravy train runs
on the crap it exports
Man’s inhumanity
now a globalised sport
Even the food you eat
has become a toxic rort
So feed your children
a wholesome snack
of processed junk
All poly-plastic-saturated
and highly adulterated
yet tasty like a chemical
… What the heck!

Corporate junk
never satiated
Junk that does a bunk
Junk venerated
True love forged
Junk engorged
Fifty shades of junk
highly overrated
And only if your bored
To misuse the measure
of pain and pleasure
in the refuse of abuse
Some philistine
of predatory crime
trashing a treasure
Junk indeed
in need of a spank
Like a Weinstein
doing time
Junk has no love
left in the tank
Junk riding shotgun
on a garbage truck
Junk locked and loaded
in the vault of a bank

Junk on display
Junk on parade
With cash to splash
the rash and the trash
getting their junk waylaid
giving it a bash
on a garbage run
till the rising sun
The junk of your choice
custom made
The thrill
of having it all
Begging
borrowing
stealing
tomorrow’s landfill
All junk
short and tall
great and small
for it’s a hard junk
a-gonna fall

Junk is telling you
what to say
and what to think
like junk that stinks
of spite and envy
As all that elitist
and most haughty
post-modest poetry
The ostentatious
and pretentious
revelling in negativity
Those bitter little pills
that spill aimlessly
into a monochrome sea
Only to sink into
the endless darkness
of grandiose self-pity
As black is the new junk
So please
colour my universe
in positive creativity
And a verse or two
of poetic true honesty

Junk is being sunk
into your personal space
since the deal went down
with a fall from grace
junk is running amok
and is hot on your case
Truth that is pure
very hard to find
in a pile of used waste
Yet even in the darkness
there is always
a loving trace
Reaching out
and shining past
all shades of junk
from the first of the worst
to the best of the last
Life is for recycling
and riding high
with the King
So skip the garbage tip
and make it a blast 😎

~ by David B. Redpath © 2018-21

“For his sake I have suffered
the loss of all things and count
them as rubbish, in order that
I might gain Christ.”

~ Paul of Tarsus

“People are trapped in history
and history is trapped in them.”

~ James Baldwin

Photography:
Alexandra Armeta-Redpath
©2019-2021

Linda & David Redpath
©2019-2021

221 thoughts on “Shades of Junk”

      3. “Archies Thongs™ are designed in
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        These days it is harder to get cheap
        slave labour here in Australia, Don.

        Like

  3. Beautiful excellent, made me think of John Trudell’s “Graffiti Man”. Here’s an excerpt…..

    “Open spaces in shopping center walls
    Middle class man middle class land
    Clean enough to be a family affair
    Nice place to take wide eyed child
    Controlled climate temperate zones
    Neat little shops all laid out
    Everything by sale
    By cash or plastic
    Price not negotiable but payment is
    Different junk man different junk
    Spend some money buy some more”

    Keep up the good writing.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Thank you, Angelo.
      Greatly appreciated
      Growing up in Australia, I’m not
      familiar with the work of John
      Trudell, or his Radio Free Alcatraz,
      but be assured I’ll be doing further
      reading and research.
      Sparks of creative brilliance are often
      the by-product of the struggle against
      oppression, and a clash of cultures.

      Like

      Reply

      2. Not a single woman soldier
        fighting in that army of Taliban,
        yet the stock market has never
        done better?
        I do wonder what Mother Nature
        has to say about all this death
        and destruction on the outer edge
        of the profit margin?
        Mankind behaving like a viral
        mutation of mass desecration.
        Words of prophecy long ago
        written, a rapidly deviating virus,
        and global warming … I do believe
        we’ve been given a final warning.

        Liked by 1 person

  10. Great piece I love it. So much junk loading upon junk, celebrating the more junk that can be bought. On point we are destroying our world and you are right the technology to solve so many problems has been around for years. At least we know we don’t need to collect junk. Material things do not make for happiness. Great photography and great writing. Stay safe you and your honey both and hugs coming to you via the airwaves. 🦋🤗❤️💕love Joni

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Greatly appreciated, Joni 🙏 💛
      Yes, the junk factor has reached
      the stratosphere, along with the
      odd billionaire, orbiting the planet.
      My prayer is that God will restore
      the whole Earth, because man left
      to his own devices is making a big
      mess of it.
      I do believe the believer has that
      hopeful promise … something about
      God’s children and their inheritance.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Amen, isn’t that the truth. Your poem was spot on the point of the longer poem I believe is that there is no end to the amount of junk. Very cleaver my friend. The conditions of our dying sea and the Amazon break my heart. So much greed drive all this too. We will see a new earth one day but as you say we need to quit denying the destruction of this one.
        Sending hugs and love to you both. ❤️🤗

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Big business ever strives for a
      higher standard of junk existence,
      where the quality of junk is without
      mercy. I’m afraid biology may well
      be rapidly approaching a precipice.
      My only hope is to join the modified
      and justified Ancients in Christ.
      In the meantime of an environmental
      crime all the fallen children, with a
      hungry mouth to feed, will do what
      they must.

      “I looked, and there before me was
      a pale horse! Its rider was named
      Death, and Hades was following
      close behind him. They were given
      power over a fourth of the earth to
      kill by sword, famine and plague,
      and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

      ~ John the Revelator

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      Reply

  13. Decluttering one’s life is hard. This illustrates the variety and clinginess of junk, and the many forms it takes. I’ll keep my partner’s junk, though, as I may still have use for it (see, impossible to eliminate). Guess we each have our favorite types of junk.

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    Reply

    1. I have become comfortably
      minimal, except when it comes
      to junk in the trunk 😎
      Yes, somethings are indispensable.
      I’d even say essential,
      unless you’re a monk 🤔
      Thank you K. for your most sensible
      comment 🙏

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  14. The loss of all things was the man remade. The Pharisees’ loss, our gain (Saint Paul). David this is as always a gripping read. Creativity and poetry color my universe too. And there’s hope amid all the junk. I just came from watching an interesting vid from Dr. Vandana Shiva: https://youtu.be/hreQQ20L3Y0 and the thing is, I saw a series in 2007 warning about this and how we can fix it. Love, (especially loving our Mother), connection, and creative collaboration were the answers. Love most of all. ♥.

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  16. I junk; you junk; he, she, it junks; we junk; youse all junk; they junk;
    it will junk;
    thou hast junketh;
    junkest thee that I will have junked?
    Nay, junko;
    Car les dances bizarres genent mes yeux maintenant;
    For the worldly skating rink hinders my seeing just now.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Despite a relapse
      of recycled snow blindness
      in a world out of focus
      I confess that I’m a junking funkie
      of a self entitled golden breed
      It was in fact
      and indeed
      myself who created
      this mess in the first place
      Thanks for taking notice, R. S. 🙏

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      Reply

  19. I did enjoy this poem, but it was too long. Maybe my attention span has decreased from reading too much junk. (I’m really into those Korean webtoons at the moment. They’re nice, but not exactly filled with higher truths and meaning.)

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