Ann

Dear Ann, I know it’s early

Dear Ann, my writing is bent

But the fountain ink doesn’t cover the years
I’ll try now to present

I’m still dressed in 30s pinstripe

That’s the time I just stopped

Not deliberate was that decision I made

To keep those lines of mine wrapped up

And what about the book, Ann

To you I promised I’d write

Eloquent verse, but I couldn’t get away

From corridors of cliché that did my pen blight

My hard cut even, front and back now

All to millimetre rule

Not like the ragged long hair

Of the young man when the bus is full

Who watches me on my way home

That’s entertainment, I know all right

Imagination is the best horror

Like the best film what you don’t see holds the fright

But this is no film, hear me boy

This is as real as you’ll ever see

One false move, that’s all it takes

It’s not so difficult to be like me

Dear Ann, I’m hear as you’d know

I look the same, everything’s alright

But you know Ann, I’ve been thinking

About the man I’ve not been

And that boy might.