Found Poetry

Found Poem

Somewhere 

there 

the flash of 

short-term memory

waiting to speak

to fill in empty space

with name, date, trivia, punch line.

holding the shadow of life

to go on

hundred times a day.

I greet my neighbour, who smiles

looking for some clue, 

anything to break the spell

of disappointments

in long-term memory

struggling to find meaning

in the here and now

Original piece

Lost in Plain Sight
BY PETER SCHNEIDER

Somewhere recently
I lost my short-term memory.
It was there and then it moved
like the flash of a red fox
along a line fence.
 
My short-term memory
has no address but here
no time but now.
It is a straight-man, waiting to speak
to fill in empty space
with name, date, trivia, punch line.
And then it fails to show.
 
It is lost, hiding somewhere out back
a dried ragweed stalk on the Kansas Prairie
holding the shadow of its life
against a January wind.
 
How am I to go on?
I wake up a hundred times a day.
Who am I waiting for
what am I looking for
why do I have this empty cup
on the porch or in the yard?
I greet my neighbour, who smiles.
I turn a slow, lazy Susan
in my mind, looking for
some clue, anything to break the spell
of being lost in plain sight.

https://dversepoets.com/2021/10/19/poetics-lost-poems-and-found-poetry/

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