Untitled poem

By Clare Guttridge

I cannot feel the romance of Romeo for the cold The sun decieved me into wearing a thin polka dot dress of old An arm grips me awkwardly like a first date, you are getting far too bold. and I furrow like a lioness. The anxiety of an out of town trip, I am a Walsall girl, a philistine No degree or education like that foundry-working father of mine True to my roots and ignoring the culture of the night, I drink the bars cheap red wine Every sound in the auditorium shakes me like an explosion and I furrow like a lioness. The masses wear their jeans and t-shirts, I expected to see tuxedos Middle-class luvvie types who enjoy reading The Guardian in their huge garden gazebos They don't holiday in your Skegness' or your Blackpools, it's your Barcelonas and your Lidos in my hands I feel the creases of the lionesses furrows deepen. I hated the choregraphy of Romeo wooing his Missus A wobbly metal frame hindering their furtive kisses Fighting like the All Blacks pre-match dance with massive wooden sticksies I'm struggling for breath now like a dying lioness. I thrived off the tragedy of their ill-fated union and love in bleakest sorrow I bet Romeo had wished he had just waited until the 'morrow And Juliet, in all her infatuation and woe made on hell of a cock-up Now the words don't even rhyme, and the lioness has had it. Off for a curry at an aptly named restaraunt called Thespians Chowing down on Tikka Massala, trying to sound intellectual I realise from the stain on my dress the only clever thing about me is spectacles I furrow like a lioness I begged you to come with me - it was my volition I reflect on the beauty of extended metaphor and feel a pang of contrition a dirty, white swan on the Avon and I ingest Stratford's literary tradition I stop furrowing. Clare Guttridge