Big Things Never Seem To Get Done

Originally posted 7/13/2006; original title “Spiritus Mundi.”  
The thrust of this piece has changed pretty dramatically in the revision process.

This is the desk
where I claim to work
but it’s so cluttered
nothing big can happen here,

so I work on the porch instead
where there’s an ashtray
large enough to dump
only once every couple of days
next to a pair of chairs
set up knee to knee
where the laptop can sit 
and the notebook can sit
while I sit pretending
to type as I smoke,
pretending the work goes on. 

The ghost in the kitchen
never comes out here, the ghost
that is audible from every other
place in the apartment, the ghost
that won’t leave me alone
unless I’m out here
trying to work.  When I’m not
the ghost rattles the pans
and runs across the linoleum,
tattling on someone unknown 
who ended a long time ago.
The doors swing open and shut 
without anyone touching them. 

My neighbors come and go as well,
swinging doors open and shut 
without anyone touching them
or me touching them either,
or so it seems from the porch
where the ghost never comes, 
where the things that ought to get done 
never get done, where the smoking
is good and the sitting is easy. 

I have no fear of the ghost. In fact,
if I could I’d let the ghost
open and shut my notebook at will.
I’d let that ghost
write it all for me.
I’d let the ghost make sense 
of the miscues
and odd placements, let it
take over my life; I would 
put it in better hands,
hands that can pass though walls
to get big things done

in this place
where I’ve come to rest,
where the desk is so cluttered
and the porch and I
are both so empty
that the big things
never seem
to get done.