Tom Dylan

On Meeting the Poet Laureate

I once met the Poet Laureate,

attending the reading in a 

city-centre library.

The inspirational figure

recited verse that moved

myself and the entire audience

to tears.

 

The poems he delivered

cast a spell over everyone

in the large room.

He seemed to capture

the beautiful ugliness 

of life itself in words.

 

At the end of the recital

I joined the line of people

queuing to meet the 

great man and to express

how much the poet

and his words meant to them.

 

I don\'t know if he was having a bad day.

or was feeling under the weather,

or had signed too many books that afternoon

but when I said I\'d really enjoyed the reading

and loved his work,

he told me to f*ck off.