Girl's history
Joint third are the Indian
who couldn’t help noticing that my aura
was an interesting colour (green, apparently):
would I like to have a coffee
so we could talk about it?
and the Irishman on the bus
who suddenly wanted me to see
his Esperanto e-mail.
Next is the Italian Spaniard.
After a bad start –
I don’t think I look as if I’d know
the best pubs and clubs
in the Shepherd’s Bush area –
he asked me if I’d read
the latest papal encyclical
(Fides et Ratio: very good,
and a must for those who think
all the Pope ever writes on is
Trying to Spoil Your Sex Lives);
but as he’d still not conquered me, said,
“The English don’t talk at bus stops, do they?
I do most of my social life at bus stops:
I’m trying to convert people.”
Fortunately his 260 and my 207 arrived,
as this was charming.
But first and best is the American,
drunker than I initially thought,
who stopped me on Oxford Street
and wondered if I weren’t the person
who’d asked the question
about Neoplatonic dualism
at the Michelangelo conference.
I wasn’t, never having come or gone
near a conference about Michelangelo.
The American was mixed up, and,
while on one hand considering becoming
Orthodox,
on the other wanted to come back
to my flat, to adore me, he said,
but either way he couldn’t.
Except he isn’t. Here’s your try:
“There’s this girl I really like
and I thought if I went out with you
it might take my mind off her.”
Many years on you are
uncharacteristically embarrassed
when, in some bar, complaining again
about my early reluctance,
you are reminded of this.
Love, but not in love,
platonic, not, platonic again;
one of the worst chat up lines anywhere,
ever, in the history of the world,
in the history of mankind,
worked eventually;
eventually got me writing this.
Page(s) 42
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The