Ode to a Cluttered Room

Author's Note ▼

I wrote this in my late teens or early twenties, way back in the early oughts. I thought it was lost, but recently found it in an email I sent a friend in 2013, back when it was already an "older piece" of mine. It still makes me smile. It was, of course, modeled heavily upon John Keat's famous Ode on a Grecian Urn.  

I rearranged the stanzas to help with the flow of the poem, but have not changed any of the lines.

Ode to a Cluttered Room

Thou still unbroken stretch of backwood
         Unconquered though thou be mine,
Sentient history, a text that can thus record
          Nuances more thoroughly than time:
What long-forgotten love note haunts the space
         At thy core, or thy surface, or both?
                    In linens, or in sheathes of past-due bills?
What decay do these contain? What growth?
         What frenzied lust? What adolescent race?
          What healthful craving? What imminent ills?

What are these boxes under bed?
          By what hand was this black ink label writ?
Smudged and indiscernable, now unread,
          A puzzle unsolvable by any wit?
What knowing being, by herself or with another,
          Or perhaps hurried by the ticking clock
                   Buried such small packing under sleeping cot?
And little box, what would choose to smother
          Such as thee? and your contents choose to mock
          Importance, and leave you here to rot?

Ah happy, happy clothes! that cannot suspend
          Upon rods, nor ever fold and rest on shelf;
And, happy ceiling fan, that will always upend
          Things below, confident in thysef;
More happy mess! more happy, happy mess!
          Forever heaped and still to be explored,
                    Forever swelling, and for ever obscure;
All human habit to assemble and obsess,
          That leaves not thy hand unoccupied, nor mind bored,
          Nor heart so unprovoked it must struggle to endure.

Found treasures are gratifying, but those unearthed
          More pleasing; therefore ye bulging mound, grow on;
Not to be mined outright, but left unbirthed,
          Grow 'til those that cringe are gone:
Fair maids, those that knock at my entry,
          Thy brooms, nor thy knocking fist can enter here;
                    Bold cleaners, never, never canst thou scour,
Though just outside the door – yet do not grieve;
          It cannot shine, but loses luster by the hour,
          But it is fixed, and you remain there!

Line Count: 40 lines