journal of a writing man
Work in Progress
A pencil note, made redundant with the passage of time
When I was nineteen I wrote 'crap' against a poem
in my copy of Wilfred Owen. 'Arms and the Boy' it was.
When I was twenty-six, in a premonitionary moment,
I crossed out the 'crap' and wrote '?' alongside.
When I was thirty-four, I crossed out the '?', thinking
regretfully of the Arms, and lustfully of the Boy.
Now I am sixty-four, feeling remorse, I have tried
to erase both the 'crap' and the '?'. The effort
produced no more than a ragged hole in the page,
defacing 'The Parable of the Old Men and the Young'.
The lust, sadly, is forgotten, a rusted memory;
the poem, proudly remembered, lives on.
John Bailey
Carmarthenshire, September 2003
Note: When reading this one aloud I pronounce the first '?' as 'a question-mark'
and the second as 'query'; for the printed page I prefer the appearance of '?'
in both instances.
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