A Hoarder's Defence

I’d like to come out of the closet as a hoarder, but unfortunately I can’t get into it to come out of it.

I consider my home to be like a library. You go looking for something, you can’t find it, but you come out with something equally interesting.

Every day is an adventure for a hoarder like me. Just the other day I came across a copy of the New Musical Express from 1973. It had a cartoon of the Lone Groover and his adventures in Far Out City. On the front page was a picture of the Incredible String Band, so I looked for one of their albums. I couldn’t find one, but I came across Little Jimmy Osmond’s Greatest Hits. Oh, the memories came flooding back! What sunny days I enjoyed back then! I love the past. For me, the present is a foreign country.

In any case hoarding is only like taking photos. People take photos all the time these days, but nobody complains because it’s all digital and somebody is making money out of it.

It’s the people who clear everything out who are sick, not me. They live in an existentialist hell, no yesterday and no tomorrow, rootless and valueless in a rootless and valueless world.

And, anyway, who cares if I can’t walk to the front door. I’ve got quite handy at clambering over the boxes.

Lots Of People

There's lots of people in the world today

I see lots of them passing by

Heads down, rushing on

Some I recognize, some say hello

Others stare straight ahead and go away

If I were a countryman long ago

I wouldn’t see lots of people

Though I’d have a large family

The villagers would be my friends

The stories of each one I’d be sure to know

I sit in the café and look out on the square

Some go this way, some sit on benches

Old acquaintances, some new faces

Dancing on the stage to amuse me

Absorbed in their own dramas, hopes and cares.

Who loved who, who betrayed who, who lied

Whose child was wilful,who was wild

Whose dad has spent time inside

A spectacle, a show all year round

None speak to me, it’s as if I'd died

I like a lot of women, some of them like me

But I can’t truly love woman

A man can’t admire a woman

A man can only love a man

With woman I’ve never craved intimacy

Socializing is something of a strain

I'm not much of one for talking

Except for when I’m drinking

It’s rare to meet someone to talk to

Who understands without having to explain

Sometimes I like to go and roam the wilderness

In the woods deer are grazing

In the trees  herons are nesting

There's lots of people in the world today

But the wolves are gone now, thank goodness.