Old Thoughts from a Distant Youth

Learning the Art of Writing Poetry

By Feeling Sorry for Yourself and

Sitting all Alone in the Student Café,

Alfred University, 1959

Many years ago, when I would sit alone,

sip tea or cocoa in the corner of the room,

when outside rain and sleet, when wind would groan

through the valley, and all the fates would loom

around the wheel deciding how to  wind

my fate, a dream would linger in my mind, the kind

that innocence unravels when it thinks it’s sinned,

but you also know is empty, like the rind

around a rotten orange shrunk in itself,

and I would sit there feeling sorry, writing verse

about unspoken words and hope an elf

would suddenly spring up: If you immerse

yourself in idle fancies, you are lost,

and I would answer, Someday, with fingers crossed.