Wednesday 21 February 2018

Twice in One Day


People who don’t read, they miss out
on those small miracles of coincidence
which jolt your consciousness
into emitting a small laugh –
or, in my case a loud, ‘Ha, ha! Now way!aHa
(every time, I’m quite predictable like that) –
whenever you’ve heard a word for the first time
and later, that same day,
in a novel or a poem,
or a tome about political science
(if that’s the mood you’re in)
you encounter that word,
in print, for the first time.

It’s possible that this might happen
when you’re reading one of my poems,
as I’m occasionally given to the obscure or the sesquipedalian,
although usually I prefer
the language of the demotic.

What’s that? You only heard demotic
for the first time this morning,
yet here it is in print?

You’ve clearly been hanging out
with those plain-speaking poets again,
and then reading one of their poems,
haven’t you?


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