Poem

Charles 5 Comments
Charles

The Soul
by John Whitworth

The soul is like a little mouse.
He hides inside the body’s house
With anxious eyes and twitchy nose
As in and out he comes and goes,
A friendly, inoffensive ghost
Who lives on tea and buttered toast.
He is so delicate and small
Perhaps he is not there at all;
Long-headed chaps who ought to know
Assure us it cannot be so.
But sometimes, as I lie in bed,
I think I hear inside my head
His soft ethereal song whose words
Are in some language of the birds,
An air-borne poetry and prose
Whose liquid grammar no one knows.
So we go on, my soul and I,
Until, the day I have to die,
He packs his bags, puts on his hat
And leaves for ever. Just like that.

5 Comments

  1. Charles

    I love that. I rather like to believe we have a soul but maybe not in the traditional sense. Not something which lives on in some mysterious other place after our death but more a companion for life – the individual personality stamp we are given when born which gives us that other dimension. Something which guides us, follows us and leads us – the indescribable something which, if fed with the right basic foods, mysteriously sustains us when our physical selves are beaten. I hope the long headed chaps don’t know everything.

  2. Charles

    My soul is like a little bat.
    I keep it underneath my hat,
    And now and then I feel it flutter,
    ‘Til I slap on more salted butter.
    As time goes by, my friendly bat,
    Is really growing rather fat –
    I’d never think he wasn’t there,
    While he folollops in my hair.
    Bone headed chaps who think they know,
    Assure me that it can’t be so,
    But sometimes as I lie in bed,
    Hat pulled down tight upon my head,
    I hear his laugh, robust and hearty,
    And say, ‘What’s this – a bloody party?’
    I think, should I give him an earful?
    But then, what price a soul so cheerful?
    And maybe, when I close my eyes,
    He’ll think, as he takes to the skies,
    He wasn’t bad, that queer old bloke –
    It’s such a shame he had to croak.

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