love again

Once more, I am choosing poems to read at an event.

It’s a themed event and the theme is “love”, so, once more, I am choosing love poems to read at an event.

And, once more, I am pondering the idea that “all poetry is love poetry”.

The difficulty in choosing what to read is not that I don’t have any love poetry in my files; it’s more that I have far too much of the stuff and a very limited time slot at the event tomorrow.

One thing I won’t be reading is a piece called “I could do” that I wrote many years ago. I had forgotten all about it until a phrase in a song last night reminded me and set me looking. But it seems to have been lost, so I am trying to recreate it from memory and a corrupted computer file.

One problem is that it was a bit strange and depended on different text styles to show different tones of voice and attitude. Without the styles, or an audio file, it becomes difficult to understand quite who is speaking to whom and, so far, I haven’t managed to find the poem as I half remember it.

That said the final stanza was easy to recreate as it was a concluding commentary, not speech or thought, so here it is:

And now, each sleepless summer night
he watches Venus dance
across the rooftops, sees
the walk/ don’t walk sign flick
with indecision. Gatsby-like
he witnesses his future
fade before him.

Author: don't confuse the narrator

Exploring the boundary between writer and narrator through first person poetry, prose and opinion View all posts by don't confuse the narrator