-- SELF PORTRAIT --

John Herlihy

Always the stranger, never at home,

All of his long life the world did roam.

Many never noticed who the man was,

Never saw inside where his heart buzzed.

His colleagues considered him a mystery,

They settled on the fact a stranger he be.

Always a faint smile, giving nothing away,

Later, people realized he had little to say.

And then he was gone again into the mist,

The stranger now no longer in their midst.

“Wrote poems, no,” the Lit Prof did confide,

“Taught Eliot today, but I can’t poetry abide.”

A poet in mind and heart, a man of mystery,

There he goes, what was his name, Herlihy.

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(c) John Herlihy 22 February 2019