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Long legs

Orange eyes

That singe the dusk

Like fireflies,

That drink the sky

And toast to mine,

Get drunk on words

In lieu of wine.

Black coffee

Brewed in threes and

Putney bridge is

Drowned in trees,

So lend me your

Candy-coated kiss,

Repartee, and

Weightlessness.

(Whilst Trivial questions

Poised on a cloud

Plummet to earth to be

Spoken aloud.)

If I were a book

Would you break my spine?

And if I were French

Would you feed me a line?

I can’t cure like nicotine,

Painting your heart black,

Nor am I poetry

Scrawled on the tarmac.

Nevertheless

I’d cocoon you in rhyme

If this metre and stanza

Could cancel out time.

I’d freeze the Atlantic

In its current position;

To keep you I’d put on an

Antic disposition.

If dancing on a harpsichord

By the village green

Gives you as much of a

Kick as caffeine,

We could spend the day

Tripping the light fantastick,

Not caring if

Others see us as bombastic.

You’re a tall, tea-stained,

English rose,

Speaking in prose on your

Tippy toes,

Employing a diction that’s

Eloquent yet slurred,

Like dissonant chords mixed with

Biblical words.

Mumbling lover,

If I had my druthers,

We’d both end up in

Some city or other,

We’d roam every boulevard,

Smoking our cigarettes,

And you’d live forever in this

Rhyming couplet:

Like Mary, you are quite contrary;

Like breathing you are necessary.