Mirror Poem

This week's meeting of the Portsmouth Poetry Society was the last of the current programme before we reconvene in September with a booklet of new poems to promote and a reading on National Poetry Day to promote it at.
The theme this week was Mirror Poems, which more or less meant that form widely attributed to Julia Copus. We had some tremendous technical efforts, some of which were palindromic rather than 'mirror' if one had to be pedantic but, luckily, we didn't have to be.
I had been aware of this meeting looming at the end of the programme, a meeting I could hardly duck out of in the circumstances, and had thought about and failed to write a mirror poem a few times. Until at almost the last minute, I thought, sod it, let's do this, then. A poem about not being able to write a poem. The only thing to do and, I'm sure, not the first time it's been done.
I'm not proud of it. I certainly didn't put my name on it but here it is-

Mirror Poem 

There’s no way I could write a mirror poem,

I’m not Julia Copus after all.

There are so many things that I can’t do.

Wasting evenings, week after forlorn week,

I would have tried harder but there’s no point.

There must be tricks involved that I can’t grasp

and Julia did say that you’d lose sleep

as you struggle to make all the lines fit.

I simply don’t think I am up to it. 

I simply don’t think I am up to it.

As you struggle to make all the lines fit

- and Julia did say that you’d lose sleep-

there must be tricks involved that I can’t grasp.

I would have tried harder but there’s no point

wasting evenings, week after forlorn week.

There are so many things that I can’t do;

I’m not Julia Copus after all.

There’s no way I could write a mirror poem.