Poem: Any Shorter and I’d Have Missed It

Any Shorter and I’d Have Missed It

“Well that was quick,” he said

As they carried him out.

“Any shorter and I’d have missed it altogether.”

Nobody replied for obvious reasons

Because he had thought it, not said it

In those final moments

When everything came back to him

In that so-called twinkling of an eye,

A cavalcade of fun and failure:

Those early years, moving often,

The teenage angst, the nervous breakdowns

The joy of decades of watching television

And putting the bins out,

Wondering what it was all about.

“You couldn’t work in an iron lung”

His father had once told him

And yet he had strung together

A career and a family

And a life that he never quite

Got the hang of.

He was certainly surprised

To find that it was all over now.

He wasn’t sure if it was relief or not

And, despite what they say,

He did wish he had spent more time at work.

He was sad he had never got to Bhutan

Or ridden the Trans-Siberian railway

But never mind ‒ it was all done now

And it went by in a flash

And that was it,

Thanks very much.

Phil Brown, living in Brisbane, is an arts journalist, commentator, poet, author, presenter at festivals and other events who has worked for major news outlets in Australia and internationally. Currently he is the editor of InReview, Queensland, which expanded from Solstice Media’s South Australian InReview. His poetry and short stories, travel and various other articles have appeared widely, individually and in collections, the latter including The Kowloon Kid published by Transit Lounge in 2019. His next book, Confessions of a Minor Poet will be published by Transit Lounge in October. More can be found about Phil and his work here.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.