{"id":33603,"date":"2022-12-08T11:54:59","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T15:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=33603"},"modified":"2022-12-08T11:54:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T15:54:59","slug":"rubbish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2022\/12\/08\/rubbish.html","title":{"rendered":"Rubbish"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am on a street in Sunnyside, Queens, the<\/em>
\nCity of cities, the reflecting pool of the world,<\/em>
\nWhen a jumbled reminiscence hurries in.<\/em>
\nA rubbish removal company has parked its vans<\/em>
\nOutside a house. Odds and ends of a life are<\/em>
\nStacked at the curb, though it seems the<\/em>
\nGood stuff was picked away by the workers.<\/em>
\nThe pictures are gone. The notebooks, too.<\/em>
\nThose summary memories confiscated —<\/em>
\nIt is a perk for the workers, one which I envy,<\/em>
\nTo salvage unique traces of a life lived,<\/em>
\nThough I understand the treasures are rare.<\/em>
\nThe truest junk makes the curb:<\/em>
\nComputers, televisions, electronics;<\/em>
\nWorkers have removed hard drives and<\/em>
\nSome salvageable\/saleable innards but most of this<\/em>
\nBehavior-sculpting gadgetry will rot, like the<\/em>
\nVanishing gestures that attacked them,<\/em>
\nNever crying out for salvation or re-use.<\/em>
\nI remembered clicking through my uncle’s hard drive,<\/em>
\nLooking for his e-mail password, just steps from the<\/em>
\nSpot at which he died. His drunk wife ridiculed me.<\/em>
\n“I thought you were smart,” she drizzled.<\/em>
\nMy retort — “I am” — crumpled unspoken.<\/em>
\nI often see the text that voices speak,<\/em>
\nSlithering into oblivion or rising to nobility,<\/em>
\nAnd that day the words, hers and mine, drowned.<\/em>
\nI never found the password but I landed in a<\/em>
\nSwirl of text, a surprising storm of words from my<\/em>
\nUncle, who was not the sharing or reflective type,<\/em>
\nBut who seemed to have played along with some<\/em>
\nDiary software that appeared, demanding use.<\/em>
\nHis trail of thought was dark and sarcastic, and<\/em>
\nFrom it I wish I remembered even a single word.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am on a street in Sunnyside, Queens, the City of cities, the reflecting pool of the world, When a jumbled reminiscence hurries in. A rubbish removal company has parked its vans Outside a house. Odds and ends of a life are Stacked at the curb, though it seems the Good stuff was picked away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-181-2","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saumAn-rubbish","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33603"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33605,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33603\/revisions\/33605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}