I don’t read my poetry from a scrap of paper.

I don’t read my poems

from a scrap of paper;

and I just don’t possess

a cast-iron alibi,

or an old-boot scraper:

I was there at the time,

when this rhyme was writ;

but I took no efforts

and so my rhyme is rubbish.

I don’t read my words

from the back of a packet;

even though I know that

that is what some call style –

‘Style’, I lack it.

I read my poems

from off the top of my head;

and I’d keep that fact

under my hat,

if it wasn’t for the lack

of tact

that I attract,

or have.

I don’t read my poems,

just to get to the end,

sometimes, I stop in the midst of—