Monday, 28 October 2013

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.

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