Jim:

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Its entirely your choice whether you visit my site and leave a message
"

I've tried, dear god how I've tried. I can access your site but can I leave a message? Nada.

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I would however love to read your poems and can see no reason why posting them on this superb message forum should be a problem at least its not yet another discussion of some old tired diddly dee number or the boring Mr WWW Bush and his entourage ha ha..
"

On your head be it ...

      The Lady, the Rude Boy, and the Toy Boy:
                A Triple Epitaph

                   for Marion

What boots it swear the Fox? -- the only phrase of wit
In his thirty-odd years Elizabeth's crazy toy-boy
Ever managed. Devious, sincere, and finally in-
competent, for once Ralegh was on the sharp edge
Of things -- Francis beside him to quote the laws, and that
Devonshire rhetoric washing Essex quite away, who unbe-
lieving watched his cold lady steer him to the block.

She'd played many on her high line of art, that
Virgin queen, would play the last and cast him aside
At last, time called on her final favourite, slob-
bering James waiting in the wings -- Who but my cousin
Of Scotland? Who indeed, as Ralegh canvassed a republic,
Unable to conceive reality without her, while Bacon
And Walsingham sent letters over the Border, post-haste
And through the disputed lands, straight into James's lap.

The Fox was out-of-date, always had been, either too
Early or too late -- the Virginia colony faltering, that repub-
lic forty years in the future. And the spread cloak
A gesture out of some former, heraldic time. Neverthe-
less, it won him monopolies in salt and forgive-
ness for that other Elizabeth's sudden seduction.

Out of court for a time, but wit's indispensable,
The flash boys are mostly interchangeable, there's
Only one Walter -- so back he came, while his wife
Stayed rusticated bringing up the boys as well as she
Could, watching one grow up so unlike his father,
The other a mirror of what twenty years had been.

He had a line in casual epitaphs, for all the
Good it did him -- She was a lady whom time
Hath surprised -- as time surprised him when she
Died, incredulous that a Scots oaf should sit where
She once ruled. He was so Elizabeth's creature, he could not
Live beyond her. James's rigged treason trial, while
Essex' ghost laughed and pointed the finger, gave him
Maybe the best gift he could have had, those six-
teen years in the Tower to write his history.

Then out and away on the Main, no free bird, but
Marked for demolition, the Spanish fed his route,
The forts prepared, and all the prize another epitaph,
Walt dead beneath some foreign muskets, to Elizabeth:
I can write no more: my brains are broken.

When he came to the block himself, all he could
Summon up was a tagged scrap of an old poem, time
Reworked -- What is our life? What indeed? Better
Poor dead Henry's fitting benediction -- Only my father
Would keep such a bird in a cage. That's no jest.