Poem 1

   As promised (threatened?), a poem to fill some kind of void here. First poem I ever had published, in a small literary mag, Canadian Author and Bookman. Probably helped that the poetry editor, Sheila Martindale, was a Londoner!


Small Talk With The Lover
Of The Woman You Love


Is something that requires practice
And inside switches you can trip.
The light of longing is off now, you turn on
To the easy talk of Tolkien
And watch his lips move around the empty lines
Imagining how they move
Around and over her,
Surround and hover there.
You are measuring
In such a furious way
That the room goes foggy around his head.
The damn smile on your face belies
The x-ray vision you're using on him now
  (would that it were silver nitrate,
    cauterizing every thought and knowledge of her,
    leaving burnt and blinding eyelids
    where once were his eyes,
    looking back at you)