Across the highway

I see the rendering plant

Smoking all night

Smell strong of death

Soap to be

Stand up slowly

Plants stink is stronger

In the hot depth of summer

Walk slowly down the road

Next to the lazy warm river

Shad run strong float

Dead and bloated in the water

Payment heats my feet

I walk in the spill off stream

On the side of the hot road

Sneakers wet feet soothed

At hill bottom stream runs strong

Water cold and white

Rolling over the dark unseen rocks

Tall chain link fence

Surrounds stinking sickening plant

Walking in the woods around it

I see a couple in a side meadow

Lateral pants at their knees

Finding some meaning creating

Condensation summer heat

Woods are dark penetrated

By rays of sunlight

Rear entrance of the plant approaches

Behind the truck is my goal

Dump of boxes junks refuse

So ugly decayed I feel more alive

On the mounds of garbage move

Sifting smooth shadows

Scavenging searching securing

My cat sits among them

Champion king victor stud

Amongst all others

He is not amongst my world

Any longer, He has passed over

To the dump primordial beyond

Conventions of dishes collars flea less

Existence, surveying his surroundings

His cock hard teeth bloody with pretenders

Flesh taste of their defeat strong in his mouth

His defeat will come soon, momentarily relatively

On the fumes exhaust waste from the plant

Cancers of progress touches us all

Summer day sweat of heat plant oozes fate

Gene G. McLaughlin 2004