Fill Me
They bought me a beautiful, vellum-weight notebook,
For writing my poems, they said –
I guess they were picturing pages of captures
As soon as they popped-in my head,
With my trusty Mont Blanc that’s uncapped at the ready
To lay down a copperplate hand,
With barely a cross-out or spelling mistake,
Just as though my impromptues were planned.
Alas, I am a spidery poet
With so many stabs at a line,
And a cack-handed script from a leaky old biro,
That smudges and tatters the spine.
I write all my poems upon the computer,
That freely forgives me my sprawl –
It isn’t the least bit romantic, I’ll grant,
But it’s that or no verses at all.
I am in awe of those Victorian authors who could write a three-volume novel entirely in longhand, without constant insertions, deletions, and revisions. Did they infact need to write-out the entire book again as a fair copy ? But my greatest admiration must go to the Victorian editors who could manage to read all of that handwriting for a thousand-plus pages…
Rhyming Couplets 