I've noted and measured out the responses
urban kitchen left overs
the unfinshed business that is my life
with all it's problematic shortcomings
unattended, ignored and disregarded
deemed irrelvant due to lack of hope
the mountain of paper that is my life
rises from the ocean of my own personal mystory
administrated, appropriated, and propitiated,
I initiate the scraps
organize them
in alphabetical order
by time and date
by subject and code
the scraps of my life
much the same as a clerk
orders, bills and invoices
notes,and follows up
inboxed out
on unfinished business
like seeds planted in a confused bureaucracy
left alone they will grow wild
and as vines wrap me around
into the monster that is my
personal Frankenstien
a monster made of scraps of paper
wrinkled dirty scraps with ragged edges
and dog eared corners
the papers of life
private papers
some as old and worn
as my own
why should the task
be forced upon a mourner
in that time of longing and bereavement
to clean up the scraps
to divide them
a stack for the trash
and another for the children
impotent keepsakes
illegible memoirs, half-written
in a language too hard to understand
or even learn
in the corner table of our most familiar coffee shop
I looked and the seat was empty
vacated years ago when the bullet entered his skull
and stopped his brain
and now
all that remains
of a life
a life of power and prescene
of beauty and thought
of touching and being touched
are scraps
of paper
