Thanks for Nothing
Every day is a gift,
so say the hopeful ones
(and they are not wrong),
but the thing about Life is
Life is a shitty gift-giver.
Has not got a fucking clue.
Every time it’s the same.
a clean slate, an empty plate or
a whatever-a-thing’s-called-you-fill-full-of-shit kind of thing.
What kind of shitty gift is that?
Not even a ribbon or a bow.
And never a whiff of a gift receipt.
©2022 Jim Murdoch All rights reserved.
Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct magazines and a few, like Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Lake and Eclectica, that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Scotland with his wife and (increasingly) next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.