Talking To A Wall


One day my living room wall
Began to talk to me
And, naturally enough,
A reply was obligatory.

Trying to make conversation,
I remarked on the warm weather
We enjoyed that time of year.
This proved a mistake, however.

For, quite unaccountably,
The wallpaper started to fall
In great white strips
From off the wall.

Until the wall stood there
White and naked before me,
Revealed in its primal state,
In all its plastered glory.

Unhappy at this development,
I said out loud that I was a fool
To expect any sense
From nothing but a brick wall.

Its response was a stolid
Sort of a silence.
(I could certainly tell
It had taken offence.)

And knowing that walls have ears
And hurt feelings are hard to mend,
As it gave me its wall-eyed stare
I felt I had lost a friend.

And even though I took care
When the cold weather came
To wallpaper it over,
Things were never the same:

Talking to the wall all the time now
No sign does it evince
That it's even listening.
And it hasn't spoken to me since.

Paul Lester