Poem: Tidying up

To be facing it,

or the thought of it,

that sedimentary arrangement

of books and papers and scribbled notes.

It’s what brings into question

assumptions about why

it’s OK that, in here,

I’ve got plastic boxes filled

with CDs, photograph albums,

my parents’ wedding-gift cutlery set.

Just life, perhaps –

accumulation,

or a waste disposal problem:

hard facts piled up

demand evaluation.

Well, they don’t –

but there’s a chance

you might know what I mean,

standing here, looking for order,

in this room I thought I knew,

in this unglossed museum

to a now that’s only so recently deceased.

Tom Phillips Feb 2014