Lit eZine Vol 10 | p-10 | POETRY | Trace Evidence – Manic Sylph Writes… Poetry & Thoughts by Mona Soorma

SHORT POEM

TRACE EVIDENCE
Short Poem by Jim Murdoch

Elderly man reading a book with a thought bubble showing a bloodstained handkerchief — *AI-generated image*

My daughter doesn't read my poems
nor does her daughter or my sister or
brother or… you see where I'm going.

It's easier to talk to strangers.
They only know you as a poet
or at least the guy who wrote
the poem they're half-reading.

Knowing an author or thinking you do
is, honestly, nothing but a hindrance.
Poems aren't meant to have histories.

They don't come with baggage
Poems are the baggage or at
least some of it, picked up for
pennies at lost luggage sales.

I wonder, you wonder, whose stuff this is,
as you lay out each item on the floor and
realise socks and boxers are meaningless 

or maybe it's the opposite, yes,
because, birth aside, few things
of any significance take place
without clothes as witnesses.

Rather than this poem, then, imagine instead:
stuffed in a trouser pocket, a tattered hankie,
snot-, tear- and God-knows-what-else-stained.

Ah, such tales it could tell,
such sad and sordid tales.

Connect with Jim Murdoch on Facebook

Jim Murdoch is a prolific Scottish poet. In 2025 alone, he published 140 poems and wrote a further 200 to replace them. Over the last fifty years, pieces have been accepted by respected journals such as Acumen, Stand, and—much to his own surprise—Analog, though the greater amount by far have vanished without a trace. For ten years, he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Glasgow with his wife and, whenever the mood takes him, next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection, and four novels—Jim, not the cat.