I Am Not A Hoarder Poem by Percy Dovetonsils

Those papers
covering the chairs
and desks
and coffee table
in the livingroom?
They've been building up
layer on layer
for untold years.
I'm going to get rid of them all
just as I
will winnow down
the mountains of shoes
in the closets
the pants and shirts
that no longer fit
overflowing the closets,
the dressers,
building up
in great drifts
on and in
wicker hampers
(haven't been able to get into those hampers
for years.....wonder what's in there?)

And don't get me
started
on the books,
the thousands of books,
many of which
I will purge,
in due time,
though right now
it seems
as if
they
own the house
and I"m
just a guest
more or less.
Soon I'll be
in this yard
sleeping there,
eating there.

But that won't be
the end of it
because eventually
I'll retire
and when I do
I'll mount
my offensive,
my biblio-cleansing,
and expel
thousands of books
and unopened credit card offers,
hundreds of schmatas
- -undocumented aliens all.
They'll go
kicking and screaming
to their own country,
The Land of the Lost,
wherever that may be.

And the bike parts
burying the kitchen table?
They'll go too,
as will
most of the 3 dozen
bikes
in the garage
and my daddy's Caddy
waiting forlornly
all these years
for a rescuer,
an executioner,
a graveyard.

Oh, and the microscopes:
I don't really need......do I?
.......3 microscopes
........or is it 4.......?
Nor 3 binoculars,
nor 3 single lens reflex
non-digital
cameras
nor a fine old
Royal manual typewriter
nor all those old
crashed laptops
not to mention
the Televideo
from 1983.

They've all got to go
and they will.
But not today
Not till I retire
will I have the time
the energy
the gumption,
to smoke 'em out,
root 'em out,
flood 'em out,
turn flame throwers
on their caves,
watch
with a savage
satisfaction
as they run
screaming,
on fire,
to the nearest
Displaced Detritus Camp.

where they will
sit
and burn, outraged,
stung by rejection,
bitterly planning
the day
they
re-invade
my house
and crush me
and my cat, too.
Topple us,
suffocate us.

Then
they will rule
for a thousand years:
the books, the bikes,
the clothes, the cameras,
the papers, the 'scopes
.....and Daddy's Caddy.