You’re fucked up, don’t blame your mum and dad

(Despite what Larkin says).

Big Ifs

To the mourners round his deathbed

William Blake was moved to say:

‘Oh, if only I had taken

The time to write that play.’

Nor was William Shakespeare

Finally satisfied:

‘I know there’s a novel in me.’

(No sooner said than died.)

Beethoven in his darkest hour

Over and over he railed:

‘If only I had learned guitar

Before my hearing failed.’

In the transept of St Paul’s

Slumped Sir Christopher Wren:

‘I’d give them something really good

If I could only do it again.’

Leonardo, Mozart, Rembrandt

Led sobbing through the Pearly Gates:

‘If only I’d have…

I could have been one of the Greats.’

The Poet Takes an Autumnal Stroll on Hampstead Heath

Light rain, like steam

from a cup of camomile tea

poured from a copper kettle

heated o’er a sandalwood fire

bids him return home

and consider an alternative career.

Creative Writing

Why can’t I teach Creative Writing in Minnesota?

Or, better still, be Poet in Residence at Santa Fe?

Where golden-limbed girls with a full quota

Of perfect teeth lionize me, feed me, lead me astray.

A professorship, perhaps, visiting in Ann Arbor?

(Nothing too strenuous, the occasional social call.)

What postcards I can write, what ambitions I can harbour:

Hawaii in the springtime, Harvard in the fall.

A Critic Reviews the Curate’s Egg

‘It’s all bad.

Especially in parts.’

The Nearest Forty-two

I want to write a new poem.

What words shall I choose?

I go in. The variety is endless.

Images stretch into infinity.

I dither. Can’t make up my mind.

Inspiration becomes impatient.

Stamps its feet. Panicking

I grab the nearest forty-two,

Word Trap

Sometimes they trap me

Stop me in my tracks.

Thinking my way through

Towards a promising idea

When I am distracted

By a sound. A spelling crackles.

Without a second thought

I am off into the thicket.

The next thing I know

It is time for bed.

Another poem finished

And nothing said.

Planet Babel

‘I found I could not use the long line because of my nervous nature.’

– William Carlos Williams

As soon as my voice is heard above the babble

Which ceases as people turn

I want to disappear. Hide under the table.

My pulse races and I consequently gabble.

Puzzled faces make mine burn

And make it crystal clear – I’m from Planet Babel.

Children’s Writer

John in the garden

Playing goodies and baddies

Janet in the bedroom

Playing mummies and daddies

Mummy in the kitchen

Washing and wiping

Daddy in the study

Stereotyping

Joinedupwriting

From the first

tentative scratch on the wall

To the final

unfinished, hurried scrawl:

One poem.

It’s Only a P…

Feeling a trifle smug after breaking off an untidy,

Drawn-out affair with somebody I no longer fancied

I was strolling through Kensington Gardens

When who should I bump into but Gavin.