The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot



Story of a Hotel Room

Thinking we were safe - insanity!
We went in to make love.  All the same
Idiots to trust the little hotel bedroom.
Then in the gloom...
...And who does not know that pair of shutters
With the awkward hook on them
All screeching whispers?  Very well then, in the gloom
We set about acquiring one another
Urgently!  But on a temporary basis
Only as guests - just guests of one another's senses.

But idiots feel so safe you hold back nothing
Because the bed of cold, electric linen
Happens to be illicit...
To make love as well as that is ruinous.
Londoner, Parisian, someone should have warned us
That without permanent intentions
You have absolutely no protection
- If the act is clean, authentic, sumptuous,
The concurring deep love of the heart
Follows the naked work, profoundly moved by it.

Rosemary Tonks
(17th October 1928 - 15th April 2014)