Westminster Abbey
I stood in the poet’s corner.
I was told to face the wall
until I learned how to behave
and write of better things
in proper verse.
But it did not work.
I had escaped the nuns
and their righteous fury.
Standing in the corner
was nothing close
to kneeling on hard stones
and the burn of the pointer
cutting at your back.
I vowed long ago
never to give in
to the whims of order
or reason,
and still fight,
and will always,
for my right
to say whatever nonsense
come into my head
or dribbles from my pen.