Using form: Pantoum: Brian Allgar, ‘And then I told you’

We kissed. And then I told you (it was over
dinner at some fancy restaurant)
I loved you, but I couldn’t live like this,
meeting from time to time; I needed more.

Dinner at some fancy restaurant,
and timid sex at your place; that was all, each
meeting. From time to time, I needed more
than you were ready for, so reticent

and timid. Sex at your place – that was all. Each
meeting’s end, I tried not to ask more of you
than you were ready for. So, reticent,
I touched your face in silence, lovingly.

Meetings end. I tried not to ask more of you;
I loved you, but I couldn’t live like this.
I touched your face. In silence, lovingly,
we kissed, and then I told you it was over.

*****

Brian Allgar writes: “In general, I don’t much care for poetic forms, such as the triolet and the villanelle, with repeated lines. But I was attracted by the pantoum’s requirement that the repeated lines, though containing exactly the same words, should somewhat change in meaning each time.”

‘And then I told you’ was first published in Snakeskin.

Brian Allgar was born a mere 22 months before Adolf Hitler committed suicide, although no causal connection between the two events has ever been firmly established. Despite having lived in Paris since 1982, he remains immutably English. He started entering humorous competitions in 1967, but took a 35-year break, finally re-emerging in 2011 as a kind of Rip Van Winkle of the literary competition world. He also drinks malt whisky and writes music, which may explain his fondness for Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony. He is the author of The Ayterzedd: A Bestiary of (mostly) Alien Beings and An Answer from the Past, being the story of Rasselas and Figaro. He is also the co-author, with Marcus Bales, of Baleful Biographica, all published by Kelsay Books and available from the publisher or from Amazon.

Photo: “French restaurant with Jean” by obvio171 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.