In this instant of Modernism, tense but casual, my effort at poetry goes way back before Keats coughed or Poe wore black, to Elizabethan times, taught me as a clever era when sin, metaphor, and playwrights were bought, literature part of the mercantile arm of diplomacy. Poems as documents that could harm. Intent and purpose were worn on the sleeve. Shakespeare made it easy to believe the same order imprisoned all against the same red, sea-faring, wall. Today moderns think my poetry is odd. I'm not allowed to discourse on you as an amateur, with love, with verses that spite today's poetry. Larkin ruminates on the side of his bed and sighing, switches off the light. Time will pass. Tomorrow I hope you find I do have the right.
