Where the house is cold and empty and the garden’s overgrown,
        They are there.
Where the letters lie unopened by a disconnected phone,
        They are there.
Where your footsteps echo strangely on each moonlit cobblestone,
Where a shadow streams behind you but the shadow’s not your own,
You may think the world’s your oyster but it’s bone, bone, bone:
      They are there, they are there, they are there.

They can parse a Latin sentence; they’re as learned as Plotinus,
        They are there.
They’re as sharp as Ockham’s razor, they’re as subtle as Aquinas,
        They are there.
They define us and refine us with their beta-query-minus,
They’re the wall-constructing emperors of undiscovered Chinas,
They confine us, then malign us, in the end they undermine us,
      They are there, they are there, they are there.

They assume it as an impost or they take it as a toll,
        They are there.
The contractors grant them all that they incontinently stole,
        They are there.
They will shrivel your ambition with their quality control,
They will desiccate your passion, then eviscerate your soul,
Wring your life out like a sponge and stuff your body down a hole,
      They are there, they are there, they are there.

In the desert of your dreaming they are humped behind the dunes,
        They are there.
On the undiscovered planet with its seven circling moons,
        They are there.
They are ticking all the boxes, making sure you eat your prunes,
They are sending secret messages by helium balloons,
They are humming Bach cantatas, they are playing looney tunes,
      They are there, they are there, they are there.

They are there, they are there, like a whisper on the air,
        They are there.
They are slippery and soapy with our hope and our despair,
        They are there.
So it’s idle if we bridle or pretend we never care,
If the questions are superfluous and the marking isn’t fair,
For we know they’re going to get us, we just don’t know when or where,
      They are there, they are there, they are there.

John Whitworth, who passed away this weekend, is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently Joy in the Morning (Kelsay, 2016), and the editor of the anthology Making Love to Marilyn Monroe: The Faber Book of Blue Verse (2006). His work appeared in Poetry Review, The Times Literary Supplement, London Magazine, The Spectator, Quadrant, New Poetry, The Flea, and other venues.

The singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding (or Wesley Stace as he goes by these days) wrote a song based on this poem for his 2011 album The Sound of His Own Voice. Watch a performance of the song below.