In a Library (For my favourite editor)

Opening Bliss Carmen at random

And seeing some silly couplets

I felt the shame of bad poetry

From a good imagination

Which is mainly the effect of

Not waiting for the silences

That worked before.

That was yesterday, in a moment's

Moment

As I already held some Greeks

And other classics in my arms

And was being asked advice

But I got the message,

It was: mutter not at being made to wait.

Today, from perhaps recollecting

Hemingway's promise that the candlelight

Was worth the wait

I took some further time,

A memory's many moments

To remember how you taught me

To spot the artist over eager

To disturb his own peace and mine

For cheap production.

I swallowed gall, of course.

And you were either brave or innocent,

Or strangely both but in the end

It seasons out to honey.

Gratitude, good lady, moves my pen;

And caution, for I will be galled again

But better pain to share between us two

Than a fool's long pleasures for all the world to view.