After Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the deaf man,
And nobody saw him.
The doorbell was flashing and ringing
But he just wasn’t coming.

Poor chap, he never went missing
and now - who knows?
We called the police. “We will be fifteen minutes”
They said.

The constable knelt at the letterbox.
”He won’t hear you, he’s deaf” we were yelling.
Without turning his head he replied
”I’m not shouting, but smelling.”


Based on a true story. After an hour and a half of banging on neighbours’ doors, about a dozen policemen, and a back door smashed into three pieces, the gentleman shuffled up the road from Sainsbury’s.