Paper Bag
After the floods,
he picked through the rotting debris
and found a barely preserved paper bag
on a low shelf in the hall. Inside,
the toothbrush and tube of paste
he'd bought to leave in a woman's home,
for those improvised nights and mornings.
Forgetting the smell
and rank humidity, he studied a while
the objects, artefacts of a time
when an isolate man made
gestures of nesting in a lovers' ambience,
keenly unheeding of an old force
building up.
After the find,
he described his discovery to the cat,
who nodded along
to his master's account; the significance
of the items now observed, the flights
of heart and mind now retraced,
if not kenned.
Where are the humours' displaced wants?
Do they sit behind the mirrored door
of the medicine cabinet? Flit
between the bottles in the liquor chest?
The world of things seems welcoming
to them. "I tell ya boy I swear I heard
a rustle."
Winter
After the floods,
he picked through the rotting debris
and found a barely preserved paper bag
on a low shelf in the hall. Inside,
the toothbrush and tube of paste
he'd bought to leave in a woman's home,
for those improvised nights and mornings.
Forgetting the smell
and rank humidity, he studied a while
the objects, artefacts of a time
when an isolate man made
gestures of nesting in a lovers' ambience,
keenly unheeding of an old force
building up.
After the find,
he described his discovery to the cat,
who nodded along
to his master's account; the significance
of the items now observed, the flights
of heart and mind now retraced,
if not kenned.
Where are the humours' displaced wants?
Do they sit behind the mirrored door
of the medicine cabinet? Flit
between the bottles in the liquor chest?
The world of things seems welcoming
to them. "I tell ya boy I swear I heard
a rustle."
Winter
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
But seriously, I wish I knew how to spot these phonies from the get-go, so I could save myself the hassle of trying to work with people who don't want to do the work. Any suggestions?
I know you understand.
And I agree with Hemlock above, you are an old soul - and lucky for us!
i was to discover two
things:
a) most publishers thought that anything
boring had something to do with things
profound.
b) that it would take decades of
living and writing
before i would be able to
put down
a sentence that was
anywhere near
what i wanted it to be.