Poems

OVID UPON TYNE (MCMXLIX)

The print dances a fitful cadenza
in summer evening light,
distant words he can't make
do anything but blur.

Pages come apart like rotten
transfers, the scummy old
textbook drooping from his hand,
the dumb pew-bound laddy,

but the voice drills on and
on, Miss Gardner of Edinburgh
with a tone of barbered privet
and eyes like gold-rimmed lapis beads,

explaining absolutely nothing
that might bring nearer
the drift of such wormwood verse.
...