Gazebo

Belvedere is too pretty
for what I want to shape here
ever since reading Ray Carver's story
about Holly licking whisky from
Duane's stomach just before she
tried to leap out of the window.
Their gazebo belonged to
someone else too, and though they
never heard a band play there
or built their own in a tired life,
it wasn't for want of trying,
and I believe we should all have a go
at constructing one out there
on the back lawn, small but
carefully proportioned, and a place
where you feel only the sun will shine
or where a couple can go when old
because they've made it that far together.
It must be simple too and not beyond
design or means because that's where
the real problems start.
One day I'll have Holly and Duane to stay,
throwing the whisky away and leaving
windows open wide because they'll sleep
outside in what I alone have made.

I think this is one of the 'best' poems I have written, if I can be the judge, and it is certainly one of my favourites. Seems strange perhaps to comment on your own work, but there's not much point writing if you don't have a desire to express yourself effectively and then be pleased if this happens, or seems to happen. This is quite old now, perhaps 15 years - can't recall - but it marks for me a style that is my most honest, I hope, and one that continues in my best sonnets that I have been working on for some years now. Ray Carver gets a mention, and this has continued throughout the years, and his influence has been significant in intention if not in outcome. I think the poem is actually about writing as much as anticipating/hoping for, even all those years ago, some ease in a toughish life.