Garden of Chemical Scum

By Richard Mather

Alien eyes fix

on the bricks

and bottles,

on crisp packets,

used condoms,

dirty knickers,

chewed chicken

bones and cold pizza.

Planet earth –

The Garden

of Chemical Scum,

the frontier

of the abysmal

where objects are

in motionless flight

from something

the Greeks called ti esti.

a nuclear flash perhaps

or an acid drop in the petri dish,

and the fagged-out world

burns to a smirk.