Thursday, December 14, 2017

Helga

From a chance teenage meeting
you became my first foreign friend.

Strained visits give way to
letters now and then.

Ever polite, I always write
not wanting to be the one to not reply.

Five years pass with nothing
but Christmas cards
signed in haste.

Now here you are on my doorstep
determined to visit

but nothing to say.


Previously published on The Pygmy Giant.  

I also today posted a poem on my Crafty Green Poet blog. You can read it here

Monday, December 04, 2017

Influential Poets

At the literary festival
the academic poet greets
like a long lost friend
the young poet whose first collection
is just out.

They talk ‘man to man’
(of course they’re both men)
about poetic vision.
Around them chat other poets,
perhaps not so young or important,
less fashionable or lacking confidence.

But it is one of the overlooked others
who tonight will go home
to write the poem that one day
will change the life of the woman
hiding just now behind the academic
trying to pluck up the courage
to ask for his autograph.


Previously published on Verse Wrights.

Meanwhile on my Crafty Green Poet blog you can read Weather Forecasting, which was also originally published on Verse Wrights.