Dead People’s Possessions

Simon Walsh

Simon Walsh

I’ve lived long enough to get the point and
pointlessness of dead people’s possessions,
padded softly through the rooms not knowing how to react ,
fed the ruffled cats with their disrupted routines,
traced the severed trajectories of calendars
and seen the eternally unfinished biographies on bedside tables;
I’ve heard the phones that innocently continue to ring,
ran my hands over the orphaned belongings
and felt the essence of humanity in what they are not ;
and I have recognized in the bow of  breadboard,
warp of  soap, creased in-sole of shoe
the outline of a life
but not the substance.

But most of all, it’s the quirks I like the best –
the old underwear dishcloth, the rabbit gun in the closet,
the poem written to the Queen Mother
on the occasion of her 100th birthday;
it’s because they all help to deepen the sense
that none of this adds up
without the hand of the designer
in this closed world of things.

3 Comments

  1. Enjoyed your excellent poem . Truths without being “Hallmark”.

  2. That fecking rabbit gun nearly blew my bloody head off thank you very much.

  3. I’ve enjoyed meandering through, reading the Spry poems. Compliments to the editors and contributors!

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