Facts about Things by W. N. Herbert

Things are tired.
Things like to lie down.
Things are happiest when,
for no reason, they collapse.

That French plastic bottle, still half-full,
that soft-back book, just leaning on
another book, drowsily:
soon they will want to go outside,


soon you will find them in the grass
with the empty bleaching cans and that part
of an estate agent's sign
that's covered in a fine grime like mascara.

That plastic bag you've folded up
feels constrained by you and wants
to hang from bushes, looking like
a spirit, sprawled and thumbing a lift.

Things are bums, tramps, transitories:
they prefer it when it's raining.
Lightbulbs like to lie in that same
long, uncut, casual grass

and watch the funnel effect: the way
on looking up the rain all seems
to bend towards you,
the way the rain seems to like you.

Things which do not decay
like it best in shrubbery, they like
to be partly buried.
They like the coolness of the grass.

Most of all, they like it
when it rains.

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poets/w-n-herbert