Enter Home Planet News Poetry of Issue #4                        Page 20
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THE PROPER DISPOSAL OF CLUTTER

Yes the Pieta was within the marble all along,
and Michelangelo was a magician with his chisel,
but beneath master and masterpiece
lay the talus and scree of a thousand stillborn Pietas.
And legions of unborn Hamlets
were aborted on crumpled paper tossed into Shakespeare's trash.
Even grade Z meat chucked from Emeril's Cajun kitchen
can be seasoned and stewed for gourmet tastes.
These maestros of shards, orts, and leavings,
these discerning demiurges of odds from ends,
these dumpster craftsmen, junk heap artisans,
prestidigitators of factory seconds,
who fashion aesthetics out of ashes,
we should all be in awe on their rag-picker genius.
And so each time you spring-clean worn-out possessions,
don't haggle them away on flea market tables,
but leave those castoffs on the curbs
where soon to be discovered unknown artists
prowl skid row streets for inspiration.

  Richard Fein