Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Soup” by Lynn Tait, which first appeared in Poetry Pause in October 2020.

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Soup

By Lynn Tait

After “Hong Kong Soup 1826” a photo documentary series by Mandy Baker depicting plastic debris collected from over 30 different beaches in Hong Kong since 2012. 1862 is the amount of tonnage. “Soup” is a description given to plastic debris suspended in the ocean – a direct reference to the waste crisis in Hong Kong.

man-made soup carried by water and wind, spat
onto beaches – medical waste backdrop tapped, siphoned off –
syringes, condoms spent like party favours –

celebratory rubbish for each new year – snake   dragon   horse   monkey,
non-degradable annual revelry – seahorse and elephant’s synthetic end sadder
than the real thing – Nature’s demise – a return, a breakdown cycle of life,
death, extinction, accelerated by our love for the throwaway –

tossed without ceremony – cluttered cemetery of idealized coastlines –
the fruits of our oil-based labour – non-recyclable products of our collective desires,
our discarded hearts – landfill escapees nestling into newfound niches – land and sea,
embellished with artificial blooms – their flowering time eternal –

sea foam or polystyrene, the romance of salt and sea – home
of whale, salmon, coral reef or cod – these new denizens: more than meets the eye
non-action figures – foregone conclusions flung with childhood abandon
into the depths of coastal dumps – our road to infinity paved with disposable lighters –

mannequin hands shake on empty promises – a toxic deal sealed in triplicate –
what use medicinal debris, used IVs to a dying sea – no bottled bleach
cleans up after itself – no tide scrubs clean these ocean floors.

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Copyright © Lynn Tait

First appeared in Poetry Pause in October 2020.

Lynn Tait is an award-winning poet/photographer residing in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Her debut poetry collection You Break It, You Buy It was published in 2023 by Guernica Editions and is working on a second book of poems. Her poems have appeared in FreeFall, Vallum, CV2, Literary Review of Canada, Trinity Review, High Shelf Press, The Quarantine Review, Verse/Virtual, Muleskinner, Last Leaves, Anti-Heroin Chic, Poetry Pause and published in over 100 anthologies. She is a member of the Ontario Poetry Society, the League of Canadian Poets, the American Academy of Poets, The Writers Union of Canada and the Not The Rodeo Poets. Her photo art has been exhibited locally, featured in various magazines and graced the covers of 9 poetry books.

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