Keys

[Hawkman]

The pixies have hidden my keys again,
I can’t get out of the house.
So where have they put ‘em?
I’m going to be late!
Did borrowers take ‘em
Or maybe a mouse,
What possible reason
Provokes them to steal,
Deprive me of freedom,
Unjustly I feel,
When all that I want
Is appointments to keep.

So can I be certain they won’t think me lax,
Or lazy, or fickle, when told of the facts,
That on rising this morning
My keys disappeared,
Not where I left them
But moved as I’d feared,
By lares and penates
I’d left unappeased,
Or some faerie or demon’s
Malevolent drive,
Designing my lateness
By tricks to contrive.

A prayer to St. Jude might be worth half a shot,
But if he’s the best one,
Quite certain I’m not.
If I had the right book
I’d scan the inside,
But my hagiography’s lost -
With my keys may reside.
I’ve searched high and lo
But the keys I can’t find;
Third time lucky - could be,
Now what’s that I spy?
Half hidden by paper,
And caught in a nook,
The damn things are here,
The first place I looked.

[Pendragon]

Wow, I can relate to this. If it's not my keys it's my glasses or my cell phone. Here there be Pixies!

[Bar22do]

I guess "keys" have some additional meaning here... though I may be influenced by the brothers Cohen's movie "A Serious Man" I have just seen and whose protagonist really lost his keys to life, if he ever got any... thanks for conveying this honest sense of being out of control we all share, at times.

[Hawkman]

Thanks Bar, Pen I’m glad you enjoyed it.

As an aside, I’m fascinated by how we interpret what we read. Our perceptions of meaning are so tinted with prior experience, or even just by what happens to be on our minds at the time, that we may perceive far more than the author intended, or far less. Sometimes we may even miss the point altogether. (I know I have) Yet the next time we read it we may find something completely new.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

I loved the light way you handled what to any of us - certainly to me - would be an anxiety fraught experience. In fact, I composed the following aphorism once:



When any one of your things goes missing, can the rest be far behind?

[Hawkman]

Thanks, Prince. If it's not my keys then it's my wallet. I guess this is what happens when you don't make offerings to the household gods. Douglas Adams claimed that Biros disappeared through a wormhole and went to a planet entirely populated by biroid life forms. I wonder if the same applies to all the other stuff we lose?

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thanks, Prince. If it's not my keys then it's my wallet. I guess this is what happens when you don't make offerings to the household gods. Douglas Adams claimed that Biros disappeared through a wormhole and went to a planet entirely populated by biroid life forms. I wonder if the same applies to all the other stuff we lose?

H

Happens I wrote a story for kids called "The Things that Ran Away from James" which an agent is just now trying to place for me. I'll attempt to send the whole of it to you via PM though it might take more than one message.

[qimissung]

That's what my things are always doing!

[PrinceMyshkin]

That's what my things are always doing!

From: the Department of "Lost" Things
To: Various finger-pointing, addlepated mammalians:

Is it not time perhaps that you gave a thought to us, to we that is who are by no means "lost" but have grown tired of your neglect of us and have gone to join our brothers and sisters in Lost keys, wallets, address-books &c land?

[Hawkman]

Thanks my Prince, I look forward to that. In the meantime here are some further thoughts on lost things.

We are the small game hunters,
We seek the things you lose.
They can’t escape us,
Nothing does,
We’re relentless in pursuit.
This doesn’t mean
You’ll get them back,
We keep the things we find;
Your sticky tape and biros,
Misplaced keys and wallets too,
Along with all your other junk,
Even pairs of shoes.

We are the anti-Santas,
Depriving you of things,
Your carelessness
Has let escape,
Seeking new horizons.
Stowed safely in our bulging sacks,
Is all the stuff of life,
The oddments,
That when lost, can cause you
Just no end of strife.

So care for your possessions,
Lock them up or even chain them;
For if you don’t they’ll get away
And that’s just when we’ll cage ‘em.
If you ever wonder what we do
With all the goods we’ve got,
We run the second-hand shops,
Your missing things – our stock.