Poetry Forum

people on oxford street look like
people I know
people who come and go
as I strain to make out their features,
convinced I see
people I know
or people I used to know
long ago;
people with whom I lost touch
or faith
or who lost it with me;
people whose walled garden worlds
I could not see inside
would not confide in them
nor they in me –
but for a while there, we
exchanged surfaces, a smile –
the odd cup of tea;
people whose lives simply
took place somewhere else
outside my cut-glass window
beyond my field of view
people
I never really knew
at all, any more than I know these
people who look like
people I know
or don’t know

Enigmatic in its surmise.

Good end, that starts at the beginning.

good stuff.

Reminded me a bit of No Road by Larkin. Good one.

Cam

thanks guys. "no road" - don't know that one. you have a copy?
des
x

This is a copyright poem and so I shouldn't really be posting it but if you don't tell anyone....

No Road

Since we agreed to let the road between us
Fall to disuse,
And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us,
And turned all time's eroding agents loose,
Silence, and space, and strangers - our neglect
Has not had much effect.

Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown;
No other change.
So clear it stands, so little overgrown,
Walking that way tonight would not seem strange,
And still would be allowed. A little longer,
And time will be stronger,

Drafting a world where no such road will run
From you to me;
To watch that world come up like a cold sun,
Rewarding others, is my liberty.
Not to prevent it is my will's fulfilment.
Willing it, my ailment.