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The shoes that lost a man – Poem

A few week’s ago I was in Observatory shopping for new tyres for my car. It was a grey and rainy day. To kill time I went walking along the Main Road towards Salt River. There on the pavement I came across these shoes. It looked as though a man, in his stride, had disappeared out of his very fine brown shoes. Where had he gone, or disappeared to…?

Listen to Bob read the poem

The shoes that lost a man

On a day of traffic and grey clouds

I went walking past these shoes

Brown and worthy to be worn

mid stride they stood

as though feet and legs were in them

but where had the presumed man gone?

He had disappeared out of his shoes

teleported to another space

all his atoms vanishing to be

re-formed in another place?

The truth is he was no longer here

there or anywhere that I could see.

There were just his shoes and me.

I have come to report

that a man disappeared

out of his shoes

on a street where I walked.

To report the incident you see.

Please find where he could be

for as far as I can see

this could be happening all over the city

that shoes are losing their people

as they vanish into thine air.

No I am not losing my hair!

Surely you should care

to avoid a missing persons’ scare!

I reached the Taxi rank to scan

seeking a barefooted man,

no, not there

I rushed to the station

to meet the train

and people coming from Mitchells Plain,

no, not there

I climbed the hill to the hospital

but they were all barefoot there

lying comfy warm with care

and shoes beneath their beds.

I tried the markets walking slow

staring down below

but no, not there.

Frustrated and mystified

I returned to the shoes in my stride.

That they were still there

cannot be denied

but standing in them now all sepia

frozen as a statue was a man

with hat, dress suit and cane

his arms in walking swing

shoes in that first manless stride.

Hello said I with a quizzical smile

No time, said he, I’m off to meet my bride.

and stepped into the world of colour.

One comment on “The shoes that lost a man – Poem

  1. Intriguing and delightful. Thanks, Bob.

    Like

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