I haven’t posted a poem in a while. The following was written a month or two ago for a science fiction poetry competition; since that’s over and it didn’t win or place, I’m posting it here. As may be obvious, it’s taken from the experience of living in a foreign country and not knowing so much that’s basic and obvious to everyone else, and just extrapolated a bit. (No, I have not met any telepathic Dutch people.) (That I know of.) I think it got away from me a little in the final couplet, though I like the rest.
Company Manners
They’re terribly, terribly *nice*. They try so hard
To keep their pity out of eyes and mind
To keep their questions locked down, under guard,
They’d sooner lose a lobe than be unkind.
We chat instead of small things, daily news,
Of favorite foods and places that we’ve been
They ask for my opinions and my views,
And talk about which teams they think will win.
They guard from habit top-thoughts they’re conveying,
Forgetting I can’t read beneath the mask
Not realizing their faces are betraying
The very things they’re careful not to ask:“How can you truly love, with minds concealed?
How can you trust a lover, unrevealed?”