I can't believe myself back then.

I was with a dozen other would be poets

attempting to become the real deal.

One afternoon as I was walking along

the outside terrace I noticed a committee

meeting was taking place in the library

and looking through the window I saw

one of it's members was Poet Laureate.

He was eating Garibaldi and Bourbon biscuits

and when he finished put his plate on the unlit

stove. I hid in the bushes till the committee left

before dashing into the room and licking clean

Ted Hughes's plate of Garibaldi and Bourbon crumbs.

I don't know what I expected to happen. Perhaps

at least I'd become a better poet, understand

the works of Shakespeare and all that crowd,

and the myths associated with animals and landscape.

But nothing happened. I'm still a would be poet

who can't understand Shakespeare and all that crowd

and the myths associated with animals and landscape.

What I regret is not eating the Garibaldi and Bourbon

biscuits from the packet that was left on the table.