NYC Garbage - Part I - Garbage Cans

Ever step on a banana peel? Or dog poop? Or wet newspapers? Notice a bunch of litter around an almost empty garbage can? Feel thankful when people actually put their food wrappings in the garbage can?

Ever rush past the dumpsters late at night in fear of the rats loudly scurrying about? Or rush past the sanitation truck with your fingers clamped on your nose to keep the rot from playing on your tongue?

Garbage, whether it is in a can, lying on the floor, falling from your hand, or stuck in a tree, is a prominent feature of New York City. Hence, I give to you Part I of NYC Garbage: original photographs of garbage cans in Manhattan and the Bronx.

The shape, order and content of garbage cans in New York City attract me for the following reasons:

1. Each garbage can has a unique situational identity.



2. No garbage can look the same from day to day.



3. They are really helpful when they're there.

All images in this post are watermarked and copyrighted by Xiomara A. Maldonado.

Morningside Heights

Morningside Heights



A shirtless ode sweats hot verse, pulses words,
wrings them like lime, into this open mouth.



A silver hymn, beaded with prayers, hangs
like its Christ from the rearview mirror.



Past Riverside a saline epic shifts, cradling blue
crabs and bass, propelling sewage and plankton.



Crying over the baseball field, newborn graffiti
poetically claims cliffed Manhattan schist.



On one-tenth the root of a Siberian carpe diem
tips my toes and carries cobblestone;



and London haiku, green from eating pollution,
peel brown bark to bare white within.



A stunted doggerel breaks bricks on College
Walk, tricks and trips, sucks in stilettos.



A fossilized elegy, each tentacle a series
of circles, ages in the limestone wall.

Copyright ©Xiomara A. Maldonado 2008