By Carolee Ross


When I was a little girl
I remember reading
About two brothers
Who lived in a mansion
Covered with debris.

I marveled at the papers
Lined up to the ceiling
Envelopes, newspapers, magazines
On the floor, on the furniture
On the stove, the sink, and the toilet.

Life Magazine I think it was
Covered the scandal
And everyone who read it
Was embarrassed and titillated
At their being caught dead in debris.

Well here I am,
My writer’s office
Covered in the same way
With books and abstracts and papers
A negative space not to be found.

I thought it couldn’t happen
That I would stay organized and orderly
And in control of everything I needed
Calm, literate, educated
A writer to fulfill all needs.

But there’s the picture of my girls
And the cherished one of my Papa
Next to an old clock that doesn’t work
And an empty box of cookies
And the remnants of last night’s story.

I’ll vow to be neater
And more precise
And clutter free and tidy
But the next day the elves will come back
And I’ll become one of the old crazy persons in Life Magazine.


Writers Note: Background Information from Wikipedia on the Collyer Brothers
Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881 – March 21, 1947) and Langley Collyer (October 3, 1885 – March 1947) were two American brothers who became famous because of their bizarre nature and compulsive hoarding. For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely seen men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street), in Manhattan, where they obsessively collected books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items, with booby traps set up in corridors and doorways to protect against intruders. Both were eventually found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived, surrounded by over 130 tons of collected items that they had amassed over several decades.[1]