About twenty years ago I found a small exercise book full of handwritten poems in a park in London<\/p>\n
They were very good and much superior to anything that I had ever written<\/p>\n
I did nothing for five years and then decided to publish them under my own name<\/p>\n
The poems were well received and I was celebrated within the literary world<\/p>\n
And then I stayed silent even though I was asked to publish another collection<\/p>\n
The reason was quite obvious as I knew that I was a fraud<\/p>\n
It was then that I met a woman called Jolanda who liked to be known as Y<\/p>\n
We had a whirlwind romance and married to following year<\/p>\n
It was about then that my problems started<\/p>\n
As Y told me that she was a poet but had stopped writing a number of years previously<\/p>\n
She would not reveal the reason why<\/p>\n
Although I was a mediocre poet I encouraged her to write<\/p>\n
And to my shock I found out that her poems were mine<\/p>\n
She told me that her first desire had been revenge<\/p>\n
But on meeting me she saw that I was a weak and a lost man<\/p>\n
It may seem strange but that is the reason she fell for me<\/p>\n
I told her that I was so ashamed that I would abandon poetry<\/p>\n
But she asked me not to be as hasty as this would damage her work<\/p>\n
And also although I was a dishonest shit she did love me a great deal<\/p>\n
So I decided to create another poet a female poet called Y<\/p>\n
To my many readers it was seem that I was creating a theatre<\/p>\n
The poems were a great success and gathered a number of awards<\/p>\n
My wife was very happy with the arrangement as she could remain hidden<\/p>\n
But I increasingly felt like a fraud and was losing respect for myself<\/p>\n
It was then that I decided to design gardens under my brothers name<\/p>\n
There was an honesty about nature that I could not find in myself<\/p>\n
And slowly but surely I faded pretending to be totally burned out<\/p>\n
Y understood my position and wanted each of us to be happy<\/p>\n
That is why I am writing this poem as a kind of suicide note<\/p>\n
As the scandal will destroy my literary career<\/p>\n
Doors will close on me and I will be isolated in the gardens that I design<\/p>\n
But in a perverse way this I hope will promote Y to where she deserves to be<\/p>\n
Y is happy to take the chance as our marriage is stronger than literary recognition<\/p>\n
We have agreed on the title which is my last ever smokescreen<\/p>\n
A poor one but that is all I have left<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About twenty years ago I found a small exercise book full of handwritten poems in a park in London They were very good and much superior to anything that I had ever written I did nothing for five years and then decided to publish them under my own name The poems were well received and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}