Written by Susan Lane

I am just a garden storage bench

This poem is about a neglected garden storage bench – living in grime, feeling overlooked, quietly resentful of my neighbour’s tree and is a humorous ode to my domestic chaos, my poetic procrastination, and the small victory of a duster and Mr Sheen.

But I’m wondering
Why did they get me, I’ll never know
They don’t even use me,
Not even as a store and
They haven’t before

I’m all filthy with lots of bird muck
And tree debris
Plus, all the dirt from the farm
That has settled on me
It would be so nice to have a good clean
I can’t remember the last time that I gleamed
Hopefully, this weekend,

There may be a way that
I can persuade the lady of the house
To have a good play
Maybe she’ll bring a bucket
And a sponge over my way
But I’ll bet she doesn’t

Because at the moment
She’s totally distracted you see
She fills any spare time,
Writing bloomin’ useless poetry
About everything including me
Then only after that does anything else
Get considered, for a clean

Garden bench – Shite to Shine

Eventually we get dusted off
Especially me, just to get rid of the worst,
Of the shite that is covering me,
Even though it’s only briefly.
She then waits until after the rain
To give me a proper wipe
So, I’m actually clean again

That way when more crud lands on me
It’ll be less strife or hard work
For me to be cleaned
It’s definitely less of a chore and
A timesaving way you see
Then she can give me a good polish
And go for another cup of tea
Then sit and watch as the neighbour’s tree

Dumps a load more crap on top of me
All berries and seeds create such a mess
It’s awful to see
Oh, why doesn’t the neighbour
Trim their flippin’ tree 
Then I’d be nowhere near as dirty
As I now appear
But even now she seems full of good cheer

But I know my lady rues the day
When the old lady next door went away,
Unfortunately, she died you see
Of old age that was a huge shame
Couldn’t be avoided and
That garden next door
Won’t ever be the same as it was before

They plainly said when they moved in
They didn’t do gardening
Now that was a definite sin
It’s absolutely huge you see
And it’s now full of overgrown
Shrubs and weeds and other rubbish
That you wouldn’t believe

And because everything is so bad
But cannot be seen
My lady doesn’t care she just
Grabs the cloth and the can of Mr Sheen
Gives me another quick flick
And with the duster covered in spray
She gives me a thin coat to keep
Lots of the dust away

Time to Celebrate

She then said “Now that’s done,
It’s time for another cup of tea”
How brilliant is that,
Let’s give it a massive Whooptidee
With me sitting in the sunshine gleaming,
So pleased, yippee!

© Susan Lane. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from the author.

ColourMine poetry, and the original photographs, are completely authentic to myself, Susan Lane – no AI, no plagiarism, all checked and verified by copyleaks

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More poems written by Susan Lane, and you can choose by category

Blog | Organic voice | A happy survival of triumph here

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