Fly-tipping

Craig Dobson

A ring of white pagodas 
Where the land meets the sea, 
Unwisely poised upon a fracture, 
Feeds a city of light 
From dimensions  
We can barely perceive, 
But the earth shudders, 
Folds the vast waters 
Into an angry arch 
With such force that it shifts 
On its spine, 
The island plunged 
Into darkness, 
And at once 
Thousands lost. 
When the flood recedes 
A single tree stands 
Near the cracked domes, 
The village, a habitation 
Of wild boar 
And feral cats, 
A cascade of atoms 
Bleeds into the tide. 
The catastrophe  
Seems so distant 
From our shore, 
But years pass, 
The rift still rent, 
Toxic spores migrate 
With the current, 
Disrupt acidic gyres, 
Unwind into warped 
Butterflies, 
And dolphins marooned 
On the sand.

The Science

As evidenced by the BBC programme Countryfile Shocking extent of fly-tipping revealed in latest Countryfile episode | Countryfile.com last year, fly-tipping is on the increase. This contributes further to the degradation of our environment’s ecological situation and is treated as an offence. However, the poem attempts to lessen the gap between the ‘us’ of concerned citizens and the ‘them’ of criminal fly-tippers. Instead, by marginalising the criminal element, it suggests how all of our existential material byproducts share some of the guilt for why fly-tipping exists. Our desire for more ‘stuff’ and our willingness to dump it so soon after acquiring it is really at the heart of the problem. The pollution of our beautiful – and only – home, is as much a shared responsibility as a shared shame. Our dumped litter, swarming like the flies its crime name suggests, hangs accusingly round all our heads.

The Poet

Craig Dobson has had poetry and short fiction published in magazines in the UK, Europe, US and Asia. He’s working on a collection of environmentally themed poetry. He lives and works in the UK.

Next poem: if not for the persistent car noises that I hate by Alec H Clark