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Waste Capital

Girls who meet in a mysterious collision of emptinesses. It’s the
      dream of the American wasteland

or early signs of it (such as blood in the urine or butterfly-like
      eruptions on the wall

where they can employ sweated labour and use the air, the
      water and

in a nearby temple about 50 skulls and bones littered the ground

scraps of this, lying beside pieces of that, fuse in the process we
      loosely call

and his specially appointed ‘corporate policy compliance officer’
      have flushed out

bulky wastes like automobile parts, street refuse, industrial refuse
      and dead

is the pipe through which urine flows from the bladder; it is also
      the channel

money is being wasted in a test that does not provide accurate
      data

junk-food characters—pretzels, stuck-up gum and chocolate-chip
      cookies with limbs

at First Citizens National Bank, emptied trash cans and carted
      money in police cars

lease equipment and eventually I shall own nothing but a heap of
      scrap iron. But I should at least be

uninterested in minor social civilities; and tolerant of littering,
      loitering, and

he is an old man who is going to die. We can’t waste things on him

the unmistakable odor of fecal matter—not typical of the normally
      odorless environment of the brain

depletion of the resources of the human body, resulting in the
      individual’s death, may be

examined for how the consumer interprets the consumption
      experience

include the urine collection transfer assembly and the fecal
      containment bag

Shit in Your Hat—Head on a Chair, in which an off-camera voice
      puts the mime on

foreign investors. This will create a drain of capital from the
      country as profits are repatriated

to complete its comprehensive master sewer plan. Officials are
      exploring

riches have been plundered, wasted, or taken abroad. The state
      has no money

waste heat from the exhaust passes through the product thereby

weaving in and out of tall weeds as he picked up plastic bags, jugs,
      bottles

separated as follows: Cyanide bearing wastewater, Chromium
      bearing wastewater, Metal bearing wastewater

none admitting to consuming more than eight cans a week.
      Analysis of the rubbish bins, however, found

no sensible investor is going to dump his capital into a business
      that reflects negative returns

toxic waste is flowing through national borders that are
      disturbingly porous.

1977 Newsweek 18 Apr. 64: ‘Altman’s desert song’; 1978 Economist 16 Dec. 1Cl: ‘Safety Ital.-style’; 1979 Economist 24 Nov. 49: ‘Productivity; like motherhood, but less robust’; 1980 BBC Summ. World Broadc. 15 Sept. Part 3 Far East; 3: ‘More mass graves discovered in Cambodia’; 1981 Christian Sci. Monitor 31 Mar. 24: ‘On being a man of litter & letters’; 1982 Financ. Times 8 Jan. 10: ‘ITT learns importance of nat. identity’; 1983 World Health July 8: ‘Nigeria’s booming capital; Lagos’; 1984 FDA Consumer Dec. 16: ‘Prostate gland dis.’; 1985 LA Times 29 Dec. Part 1 1/3: ‘A bomb tests X-ray laser in Nevada desert’; 1986 Adweek 27 Oct.: ‘Grapevine spot’; 1987 Wash. Bus. Jrnl. 31 Aug. Sect. 1; 10: ‘He’s sowing seeds now to grow harvest into a regional power’; 1988 Financ. Times 2 Feb. 28: ‘Surviving bad times’; 1989 Security Managem. Apr. 46; ‘Case your space’; 1990 Chicago Trib. 23 Sept. 3; ZONE: C: ‘For Soviets, lack of medicines is a bitter pill’; 1991 Med. Econ. 19 Aug. 57: ‘Parasitol. solves baffling med. malpractice case’; 1992 Chinese Lit.: Essays, Articles, Revs. vol. 15 94: ‘Metaphors of body’; 1993 Marketing Managem. Fall, vol. 2, 4: ‘Interpreting consumer mythol.’; 1994 San Francisco Examiner 5 June (Travel) 3: ‘Exploring Alabama's U.S. Space & Rocket Center’; 1995 New Rep. 23 Jan.31: ‘Shrieks’; 1996 Canad. Bus. & Current Affairs Peace Research May, vol. 28, 97-100: ‘NZ’s social decline’; 1997 Gov. Finance Rev. Dec. 37: ‘Financing huge success with insurance wrap-up’; 1998 Russ. Press Digest 10 Sept.: ‘To people of Russia’; 1999 Candy Ind. 1 Sept. 52: ‘Buyers, exhibitors confirm Interpack a success’; 2000 Times-Picayune (New Orleans) 9 Mar. (Metro sect.) 1: ‘Volunteers clean up waterway’; 2001 Coatings 1 July 122: ‘Wastewater recovery & treatment’; 2002 Guardian Monday May 20; 2003 Afr. News 23 May 23: ‘Tanzania; risky bank customers pay for it’; 2004 Environ. Health Persps. vol. 112 96-: ‘Environ. crimes profiting at earth's expense.’

—Giles Goodland

Giles Goodland’s most recent book is A Spy in the House of Years. His poem is part of his Capital sequence, other parts of which can be found on the Web sites of nthposition, Exquisite Corpse, and Diagram. He lives in London.

Originally published in the November/December 2005 issue of Boston Review



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