Some­thing To Think About

Such an awful
lot of thought has
gone into this
little poem.

You simply would
not believe how
much thought I have
put into this.

So many thoughts
went into this
poem there was
no room left for

the poetry.
Sorry about that.
I’ll try and do
bet­ter next time

———-

A Thought­ful Poem

The pur­pose
of this poem is to make you think.

It holds no
intrinsic mean­ing whatsoever.

There are no
addit­ives or pre­ser­vat­ives and

it will go
off if you don’t use it right away.

Today you are
going to think about [your life].

You may begin
when ready. Please switch off the lights

when you are done.

———-

The Skel­eton Of A Poem

da DUM
da DUM DUM, DUM DUM,
DUM DUM da DUM

da da DUM DUM
DUM
da da DUM DUM

da DUM
da da DUM DUM DUM
da DUM DUM DUM

———-

The Low­est Com­mon Denominator

The func­tion of
this poem is
to use up time.
There is no more.

You should leave now.
It will do you
no good to stay.

I have cap­tured
your time in this
poem. It is
now lost to you.

You should leave now.
It will do you
no good to stay.

This is my sole
func­tion. It is
not open to
arbit­ra­tion.

You should leave now.
It will do you
no good to stay.

I can­not be
more than you see.
I can­not add
mean­ing to loss.

You should leave now.
It will do you
no good to stay.

You should leave now.
It will do you
no good to stay

———-

Second Draft

I first wrote this poem
sev­en­teen years ago.

I thought I would revisit it
to see if I’ve changed any.

It used to be longer
although I didn’t have
any more to say.

In another sev­en­teen years
I might have it down to one

sen­tence and, if I live
long enough, a single,
sol­it­ary word.

It should take a life­time
to pick a word like that.

Jim Mur­doch is a Scot­tish writer liv­ing just out­side Glas­gow. His poetry appeared reg­u­larly in small press magazines dur­ing the sev­en­ties and eighties. In the nineties he turned to prose-writing and has com­pleted four nov­els and a col­lec­tion of short stor­ies. His second novel, Stranger than Fic­tion, will be pub­lished later this year. You can find out more about him on his blog, The Truth About Lies.