The Trash Patch
Harrisburg, PA
2015, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Vibrating,
Hydrating,
Migrating,
Gyrating,
Violating.
From above,
You can’t see a smudge,
But don’t prejudge.
With a nudge,
You’ll be in chemical sludge
Thicker than fudge.
And no matter how hard you trudge,
It will not budge.
It’s quite graphic,
This soup of pelagic plastic.
This blasted roadblock for subsurface traffic.
I’m not being dramatic,
The proportions are galactic.
This massive whirl of spastic plastic is drastic.
It doesn’t take a session of erratic mental gymnastics
To find a solution that is attractive and ecstatic.
Our tactic?
Static
A classic case of frantic passive-active panic from the fabrics of our attics.
Now’s the time for change.
The solution is not strange,
Nor deranged.
It’s time to turn the page,
Time to rearrange
Action, not faction, will bring back the attraction.
Just a fraction of the mental abstraction
We are capable of, barring distractions,
Will create the traction
Needed to start the contraction.
And the reaction?
Satisfaction.
Reflection
Reflection
Animals and conservation are two of the most important things to me, so this contest was a great opportunity to inspire people all over the world. Ocean pollution is one of the most dangerous threats to our planet’s diversity, and has a unique property of being completely controlled by humans. If we really want to, we can end plastic pollution. My poem takes a look at plastic pollution through a metaphorical version of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The focus of the poem and my message is not the plastic itself, but how the solution to the problem lies in our willingness to actually make a difference and not just sit back and watch as our oceans “drown” in plastic. I hope my piece portrayed that effectively.