I mmust learn to type; no,
I mult learn to ttype; so.
I must convolute my fingers - fun, isn’t it? -
I must somersault my mind
and catch my strange imaginings
and peel them into shapes; my shapes;
cut them four-square in my mind.
Clean, neat,
not yellowing yet,
not tainted by the knife.
You have a savour as you wait there,
something tangy, strange.
But first I must learn to tipe,
repeat, must learn to type
before you oxidise, go stale
upon exposure to the air,
upon exposure to a pause, a rest.
I must learn to type,
lower case only,
spilling my dreams across the chopping board -
no, keyboard -
letter by careful letter, no mistakes,
not many,
geting there slowly, soon I will do it,
soon I will have learned to type.
The words are waiting, wilting, slipping away,
fading... Oh, please!
Don’t go; don’t go away.
I’m working on it, I’m nearly there.
You’re going to be a poem if you’ll only wait
till I have learned to typE or ...write?
Was it?
What is it I was going to learn?
Poem, why won’t you ever wait?
(Spring,
1984)
