The bloody phone deleted my sestina!
At ten to midnight I was on the sofa
Attempting to ignore my naughty cat
Who, playfully, was trying to eat my feet.
I’d had a long and uninspiring day
But I was trying to get it done in time.
And it was getting done in record time:
This milestone, my eightieth sestina!
I would have got it finished yesterday
And then I would have got up off the sofa
And tended to my scratched and bitten feet
And had a cup if tea and fed the cat.
The poem I was writing I could cat-
Egorise as a bitter rant about the time
My friend went for a job but was defeat-
Ed by a tinpot despot. This sestina
– The one that I was writing on the sofa – It would have told about the fateful day
Of interview. But now instead, that day
Is lost to poetry. Because I cat-
Egorically can’t remember, so far,
Just what I’d written just before the time
And battery ran out for my sestina.
When busy counting keywords, stresses, feet.
My phone decided to admit defeat.
Because I hadn’t fed it yet today
But tried to write a piddling sestina
Despite being tormented by the cat
Because I fast was running out of time,
And was quite comfortable on the sofa.
I didnt have the charger by the sofa.
I had to find the charger – no mean feat
In this house. And by now I’m out of time.
The poem will be going up a day
Too late. And it is not about the cat This sestina is about, well, this sestina!
I’m out of time. I’m sitting on the sofa
My eightieth sestina at my feet
But it’s day eighty one! I blame the cat.
Tom Juniper Poetry 