Poems for the Garbage Man

First Book by a Great New Voice from North Carolina

Poems for the Garbage Man is a collection of poems written for real people. Author Vinnie Sarrocco wrote most of these pieces during late nights camped in the back seat of his sedan under the harsh glow of various Walmart parking lots across the country. His work often juxtaposes the whimsical with the macabre realities of reckless wanderlust and prove that someone with calloused hands still has something to say.

Vinnie Sarrocco is from rural North Carolina and now lives in Seattle. He has spent his life working everyday jobs, in warehouses, factories, and kitchens, leaving his mind free to wander. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Coffin Bell, SPREAD, Rue Scribe, Beholder Magazine, & others.

A special hardcover limited edition of 150 copies is now available, each copy includes a page of original manuscript in the author’s hand.

Published June 22, 2019.

Music City Blues

Last time I slept
we were strangers.

When the sun rises
oozing tepid rays of humanity
over East Nashville
we will be even stranger.

Our eyes lock for the first time
in the malaise of non-fiction.
No more desperate clinging to
sophomoric abstractions of freedom.
Our manifest mediocrity unmistakable.

You become possessed by
the ghosts of old antebellum street preachers
still grifting around Germantown.
I sit, the naive Protestant
in a Flannery O’Connor story.

Taking the pulpit,
your skinny chest swelling
with Bum Wisdom,

You say:
sleepin’ on the street
ain’t so bad
you lay down and it’s cold
you wake up
and it ain’t so cold

The Truth of this,
our only anchor
as we drift.

ISBN 978-1633980976 hardcover limited edition signed $60

978-1-63398-096-9 trade paperback $16