Poetry of Departures

Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand, / As epitaph: / He chucked up everything / And just cleared off, / And always the voice will sound / Certain you approve / This audacious, purifying, / Elemental move. // And they are right, I think. / We all hate home / And having to be there: / I detest my room, / Its specially-chosen junk, / The good books, the good bed, / And my life, in perfect order: / So to hear it said // He walked out on the whole crowd / Leaves me flushed and stirred, / Like Then she undid her dress / Or Take that you bastard; / Surely I can, if he did? / And that helps me stay / Sober and industrious. / But I’d go today, // Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads, / Crouch in the fo’c’sle / Stubbly with goodness, if / It weren’t so artificial, / Such a deliberate step backwards / To create an object: / Books; china; a life / Reprehensibly perfect.