Moon at Half Past Noon

The poet sits within the Barista’s din,
A caffeinated, overpriced bin.

He types a line, then deletes it with a sigh,
And watches hopeful mortals passing by.

Beyond the glass, the world performs its dance:
A dog pursues a squirrel, given half a chance.

A businessman, in suit of sober grey,
Is having a profoundly trying day.

And there! A maestro at the keyboard sits,
(Not writing verse, but crafting chocolate hits)

His fingers fly, a caffeinated blur,
To steam the milk for a Caffè Macchiato, sir.
The poet watches, feeling rather small,
Then turns back to his screen and gives his all.

His fingers, poised like eagles set to swoop,
Now fumble, like a chicken in a soup.
The great idea, once a brilliant streak,
Has packed its bags and fled within a week.

It’s gone. Departed. Vanished without trace,
Leaving a blank and mocking, white-screen space.
He orders coffee, dark as his despair,
A second cup, a third—he doesn’t care.

He stares into the dregs, a bitter seer,
But not a single word will yet appear.

He tries the park, for Wordsworth’s rustic muse,
To find the thoughts that Nature can infuse.
A daffodil? He sees a plastic bag.
A skylark’s song? A toddler starts to gag.
No “bliss of solitude,” just someone’s yapping hound.
He feels no joy, but tragically profound.

Then, in the pub, he takes a desperate swig,
And suddenly his brain feels less… obtuse.
A wisp of smoke, a young beauty’s vague intrigue,
And something in his rusty gears unglues.
A phrase! A line! It’s clumsy, but it’s there!
He grabs his phone with literary care.
He types with fervour, with a newfound fire,
A pastiche of his deepest heart’s desire.

But as he writes, a ghostly, learned crew
Appears to edit everything he’ll do.
That opening line, so lazy and so free?
Has Byron’s sneer and dark morbidity.
The description of the girl who passed him by?
Is purest Keats—”A thing of beauty…” sigh.
The urban grime, the fractured, weary soul?
Oh, that is Eliot who’s taken control.
And every time he tries to be “just him,”
A Wordsworthian phantom, stout and grim,
Intrudes with thoughts on “what the heart has said,”
Until the living poet’s nearly dead.

So here he sits, a subject, once colonial,
His inspiration deemed to be memorial,
Until some ghost from London’s foggy streets
Decides his modern, feeble heart still beats.

The truth is out, a literary crime:
We’re all just fanfic, biding for our time.
We steal their meter, pilfer their insight,
And pass it off beneath the barista’s light.

So raise your glass (or your expensive brew)
To the British Greats—we’re still their parrots, true.
Our inspiration, when it deigns to call,
Is just their echo, after all. That’s all.