Carl Halling Poet Free verse

Some Sad Dark Secret

"Temper your enthusiasm,"
She said, 
"The extremes of your reactions;
You should have 
A more conventional frame
On which to hang 
Your unconventionality."
"Don't push people,"
She said,
"You make yourself vulnerable."

She told me not to rhapsodise,
That it would be difficult,
Impossible, perhaps,
For me to harness my dynamism.
The tone of my work,
She said, 
Is often a little dubious.
She said 
She thought 
That there was something wrong.

That I'm hiding 
Some sad 
Dark secret from the world.
"Temper your enthusiasm,"
She said, 
"The extremes of your reactions;
You should have 
A more conventional frame
On which to hang 
Your unconventionality."

("Some Sad Dark Secret" was inspired by words once spoken to me by a former tutor and mentor of mine in around 1982 or '83. And my own perhaps partly fantastical reflections on them.)

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