AVerse to Valentines -- I love you all!

No, I don't, really ;) It's always annoyed me, Valentine's Day. Ever since I was a teenager -- a rather fat and serious teenager. That's me in the front row -- the little dumpy one,aged 17,

and I never sprouted. Boys didn't look my way. Mind you, I seldom looked theirs.I was too busy studying. Not the brainiest kid in the bunch but I worked very hard and Mr.Greenwood said I was the only true contralto in the choir. Mr. Greenwood didn't go in for flattery so you may believe it. We were singing Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols arranged for female voices -- hence the silly get-up.


So here it is. One I did earlier – much earlier – about 1969...

AVerse to Valentines
by Oonah V Kyle

The carnations and the ribbons
and the roses all form part
of a magic that proposes
to mend every broken heart.
As the cupids with their arrows
wait there poised to intertwine
two young hearts the lover beckons
‘Come and be my valentine.'
So they float on clouds of passion
while the lonely passers-by
watch all the little cupids,
stamped and packaged rise and fly
where the insecure horizon
meets a non-existent sky.

(published in The Braid Magazine – Ballymena Academy)

Not a bad sonnet for a fifteen year old…