This week’s poem – reflective of the daydreams in which we all indulge – is from Jeremy Page, editor of the UK literary journal The Frogmore Papers and author of several collections of poems.
Point of Departure
In this station buffet
Trevor and Celia occupy a corner table,
their backs turned discreetly towards me.
The soundtrack is Rachmaninov –
his second, of course – and
hanging in the air, tangible
as the snowdrops on each table,
is the prospect of somewhere else:
a once-in-a-lifetime adventure,
one-way ticket to some distant,
improbable destination, involving
danger, acts of derring-do,
sex that’s passionate and illicit
and the strange allure of death.
I order a coffee (large and white)
from a waiter who clearly
doesn’t understand it’s Mockney
he should be speaking
and, as Trevor rises, I note
that he’s Chinese and Celia’s
a man, and a hirsute man
at that. Suddenly it’s not
Rachmaninov who’s playing
but the Beatles, and I picture myself
in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees
and marmalade skies. And I am there.
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Jeremy Page lives in the historic market town of Lewes in the South Downs of England’s East Sussex. He has edited “The Frogmore Papers” since co-founding it in 1983. His short stories have been widely published, and he is the author of several collections of poems, most recently “Closing Time”, published this year by Pindrop Press. His translations of the Lesbia poems of Catullus were published as “The Cost of All Desire” through the Ashley Press in 2011.
Readers’ original and unpublished poems up to 30 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. A poetry book will be awarded to each contributor.