WHISPERED CONVERSATION IN A LIBRARY

• Excuse me ... I’m ... Erm ...
• Yes? I’m trying to find
• a poem. Have you in mind
• any particular one?
• One that has barely begun.
• I see: you want to be in
• a poem. Can you pun?
• Resonate? Allude?
• Disturb a heroine’s sleep
• whispering mysterious warnings?
• You’re not, I trust, rude:
• the kind of word they bleep
• on the BBC and ban
• at Conservative coffee mornings?
• So proper and polite
• that I’ve achieved the height
• of popularity —
• except in poetry.
• You’re not one of those freaks
• that doesn’t rhyme, like ‘orange’?
• Oh no. I can rhyme with ease.
• I’m a sort of missing link.
• Could I, do you think,
• appear in your poem? Please?
• Aha! I wonder whether
• (to make my poem less lame)
• you could link together
• in a startlingly novel way
• ‘Poet’, ‘Genius’ and ‘Fame’?
• That’s too grand for me.
• Who are you? What’s your name?
• How quickly you forget!
• I told you, when we met.
• Did you? Got past me.
• Cup of coffee, or tea?
• Erm ... At last! I win!
• Thank you for letting me in.
• Bye. I’ll be on my way.
• Hey, whats-your-name! I say ...
• Erm ...

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