Coffee and Keats

over breakfast

we sat and discussed poets

for the first time,

somehow, we got tangled up

in a strange conversation

about Hyperion and laudanum,

I told you I wasn’t keen

on poetry that rhymed

you didn’t seem surprised

and asked if many people were

these days,

on occasions I heard myself talking

but didn’t recognise the words

and wondered surreptitiously

if you had ever read anything

that I had written,

then I thought, if you had 

did you recognise

me amongst the words

*

© Graham Sherwood 01/2021