My bad mistook the dumpster being emptied as an approaching thunderhead

My bad mistook the dumpster being emptied as an approaching thunderhead

A Poem by matthew scott harris
"

a thunderstorm yesterday prompted me to confuse the sound of the dumpster being empty, which dump truck within earshot of where we life in a suburban tract of vinyl city.

"

appears out of the blue
just like interspersed prevarications
issuing warnings to readers
hinting at approach of poetic storm
and true to form
yours truly id est - me doth not conform.

Though the sky

did not appear ominous,
the atavistic primal simian
within me sensed dread

wherein the brainstem

constituting the oldest,
most primitive region
of human brain,
evolved early
in vertebrate history
and often called "reptilian brain,"
serves as central core
regulating essential survival functions,
including breathing, heart rate,
blood pressure, arousal,
and motor responses
can instinctually intimate
apply rod upon knee
to scout out dangerous force field
or innocuous talent
by specially trained hound dawgs
willing, ready, eager and able
to detect aroma of cornbread
spray paint (aerosol cans) foresaid
Philadelphian considered
the first person as graffiti artist
applying personal,
hashtagging artistic,
and widespread identifiers (tagging)
rather than spraying
just for gang territorial marking instead
triggering artistic motifs
and unwittingly inhaling
hazardous particulate matter
and yes oh yes as uttered by Carl Cox
toxins particularly imported,
spray paints for graffiti
still contain high levels of lead
whereat in certain spray paints
far exceeding the 90
parts per million (ppm) limit,
sometimes reaching over
100,000 ppm, particularly
in bright festive colors like yellow,
red, and green necessitating
urban health conscious artists
to don face masks
as popularity swept
across redlined districts
like wildfire of newest
modus operandi
of self expression
videre licet griffonage
out spread across
dense urban population centers
some cryptic symbology
scrawled in blood red outspread
across certainly looked forbidding
especially those couched
in hidden messages
analogous to quick response
QR codes a 2D matrix barcode,
invented in 1994
by Denso Wave in Japan,
that stores data
in black-and-white pixel patterns,
readable by smartphones
and act as fast shortcuts
to websites, apps, or data,
providing a more versatile,
high-capacity alternative
to 1D barcodes
consist of black squares
arranged on a white grid,
including specific patterns
like finder, alignment,
and timing patterns,
which allow them
to be scanned
from any direction (360 degrees)
for the soul asylum of the undead

brokering detente
between veritable
war-zones of skid row
where within heart of darkness
the seeds of revolutionaries
inequities among rich and poor
one anonymous gunned down martyr
unwittingly did grimly reap and sow
to even the tables and upend status quo
particularly when a kid
from deepest darkest Africa
emigrated and became a pro
athlete acquiring countless endorsements
and being altruistic
random acts of kindness
by boosting opportunities

for the underserved common Jane or Joe.

© 2026 matthew scott harris


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Added on March 12, 2026
Last Updated on March 12, 2026

Author

matthew scott harris
matthew scott harris

schwenksville, PA



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Would the real “Matthew Scott Harris” (born January 13th mcmlix) please stand up! Curiosity got the better part of me as mined fingers typed Matthew Scott Harris (quite some time, but I.. more..