My good friend, Philhellene and Poet Richard Devereux, sent me a message and a new Poem.
I lower my eyes and carry on walking
briskly past the girl manning the barrier –
“Greek Club”, I boom. I’m in.
have set up stalls on trestle tables.
Just turned ten – Freshers’ Fair is now open
as if a boy playing ball on some forbidden lawn.
about fifty clubs in national colours
offer nibbles of native foods,
flyers for coming events,
photos, posters, keyrings,
and most of all, connections.
but it could be kicking off when they do;
their neighbours – the Makedonia Society –
fly a flag without the ‘North’.
I lecture them on the Prespa Agreement;
they shrug and offer a pepper dip.
of the Poetry Society. The Pantomime Club
suggest I try the Hobbies tent “behind you”.
the Poetry Society stall. Unmanned, of course.
A metaphor of absence
in this forbidden place.
There is nowhere poets cannot go.


















