Clutter Clearing

Attack the clutter In the attic pieces of life And bits of me So much clutter, sorting through Old letters flutter Unwanted, unread Daring me to show I care To reach through time So dust-dimmed ink Can speak again. “Into the sack with you. I have a job to do” There’s all this papier maché A flaming crown with snake entwined I was the wicked queen One Halloween Daniel was a devil Here are his horns And a tail in a paper bag Too good to throw But this other stuff can go. Made from the Financial Times Significantly pink, a gun So many things begun I mutter “So long, adieu This day of clearing clutter Is so long overdue” Now that could be a poem And, right on cue From a stack of boxes A sheaf of paper slithers down Littering the floor I gather up the poems Like a gleaner in the field Picking out choice phrases And, sitting among the boxes I read them all then put them back Old photographs reproach me Unsorted, stuffed in envelopes Waiting for something Or someone Who never came Adieu adieu Wait, here’s a name “To Mary With love from Freddy. I am in the back row Second from left” A group of smiling boys Dressed as soldiers Captured By the camera’s shutter A sixtieth of a second, in 1942 All dead now adieu adieu So much clutter There’s so much time Spent sorting through And in the plan-chest So many plans Pause to reminisce Remember this? Posters made for Art School films Drawings, prints and paintings They call to me But I am determined I put them in the sack Pieces of life and bits of me So much clutter, And when I’m through I’ll have some space To move Adieu