Kit Kelen #613 - out of the box

613

out of the box

there are no days in there

what light’s caught is candlethought

I must be all pyjamas to read

all me in there

these other moons

endure like ages

later called as such

spun loose of leaf

in old creases

one struggles to fold back

nothing like a poem

still words that could be conversation

and often with the dead

or in some cases, I don’t know

I riffle through the box

a certain scrunch and tear

how did that extra f get in there?

a marble

torn theatre ticket

so many pictures of me

some in writing

old assassinations kept

I see of which I was not capable then

still am not

lots of perhaps

more than one dead wallet

don’t you keep it in a box?

I wish I’d had one for each year

to make a little morgue with drawers

this one’s all turn-of-the-decade

a Commonwealth bank passbook

authority to attend lectures

(and that was a hundred bucks, so it says)

the box itself says ‘Woolworths

for re-use’ on the side

(that must be much later

still it’s quite faded

cardboard won’t come in that colour)

it’s a little museum of me

there are many

with this lot

you could light a fire any time

I doubt the world’s weight would change

it’s like that myth about the corpse being lighter sans soul

why is it I go on rummaging like this?

I don’t want to empty it out

I don’t want an upending

what will I learn in there?

do others find comfort in this how-we’ve-wished

now who-we-are?

how happy still no conclusions arrived at

not for the curator, at least

it is the song of survival, this box

it’s like climbing into piano

and coming out jazz