‘I Had to Stop Myself’ is to appear in the next issue of Purple Patch which Geoff Stevens has been running for over thirty years.
The poem is also in my next collection, HISTORY TALKS, from Red Squirrel.

I Had to Stop Myself

ringing,
my mobile, a gun, I was going to fire,
tell you.

I had you opposite me,
sitting on a brown plastic chair,
disgruntled over something,
I almost spoke to kill the near-silence.

The windows open, blinds rattle
broken teeth, ‘shimmy like my sister Kate.’
I was going to ring. Your number
touching my fingertips.

Cold radiator,
footsteps on the stairs,
tell me nothing.

Tom Kelly

Purple Patch
Geoff Stevens
25. Griffiths Road
West Bromwich
B71 2EH

Red Squirrel Site
http://www.redsquirrelpress.com/index.php?home

Purple Patch

http://www.purplepatchpoetry.co.uk/