Saturday, March 04, 2006

A Poem about Poetry

Some people hate poems about poetry, but I don't.

Delayed Poem

I specialise in poems about trains
that call in late. Scratched into coffee stains
on bar tables, I leave a rhyme or two
for whoever turns up next to misconstrue
as past wrongdoing confessed or valentine.
By then, I’ve left to write another line
to someone else. As time slides by, I view
my poems as monuments to rendezvous
I usually missed. Some think they are profound,
a sign of hidden depths. Some say they sound
like one hand clapping, seconds in between
the long-lost five o’clock and six-fifteen.