Late
Bernhardt
Her every gesture was a monument.
It wasn’t love she gave. She gave herself
time and again, no less magnificent
each time she died. And that was not the half
of it.
Nobody’s
life is masterpiece
on masterpiece and one is one’s mistakes,
quand
même, in which to find such sure release
from what may or may not have been heartaches.
A law unto itself does as it likes,
as exotic as its menagerie
and the reputation it leaves behind,
the imprint that her leaving of it makes
gone far beyond the sort of coquetry
that marries the worst man that it can find.
--
Having said one wasn't going to write poems anymore, it doesn't mean I can't write one if I feel like it.
I think it is 'being a poet' I don't like having once, so many years ago, thought it such a fine thing to be. Certain poets are fine, as are some poems, but it's the others that give it a bad name.
But it's an enjoyable process once you're into it. Do some of the thinking first and don't start until you're ready and then see what happens. They are rarely as good as one hoped but, like this one, they are often not as bad as they might have been.
Perhaps I'll leave it another 18 months before the next one. I don't want to rush it.