He stared out from the stage at the rowdy crowd, laughter and the clink of beer glasses bombarded him. Paper in hand, he reached for the microphone and began to speak.
He had worked on this poem, crafting it, agonising over word choices, scansion, rhyme. He’d muttered it in the street, proclaimed it in the shower.
The room grew quiet around him. He found himself longing for heckles or jeers: something to convince him that the crowd was taking in his poem, however unfavorably. Instead he stood on the brink of darkness, flinging metaphors into a abyss of strained politeness.
Tom Juniper Poetry 