Forgotten Memories Poem by Robin Bennett

Hey old man, why do you climb these stairs?
Three flights, for no particularly good reason,
You huff and puff like a wolf on his death bed.
Back to your lumpy bed; reeking of dried bones.

Fake flowers, caked in dust and spider webs,
Sit in broken mason jars, in every open space.
You waste more time watering them, then bathing,
The place smells of second hand furniture and death.

Your door is always ajar, you puff cheap cigars as-
you made yourself dinner; a grilled cheese on your iron.
The parade of ghastly thin cats you collect, come and go,
You named them all Minnie. Flea bitten walking skeletons.

What little is left of the room, you built a cheap museum-
Nicotine stained books stacked to the ceiling, paper back of course,
Jaundice covered pictures of people in cheap ugly dresses,
Happily fat, eating goulash every night before they fled Russia.

You still sit with that vodka from the old country, reading the
crossword puzzles and the cigar pack warnings. I don't see
you giving two shakes about lung cancer. But you still read.
When I left, three of the Minnie cats where devouring your
twice weekly hot meal. Courtesy of the local do gooders.