Poem: Forever Young

Forever Young

I hear there is yet another film

about Bob Dylan going electric, aged 24,

as if the rest of his sixty-year career,

six hundred songs, and a Nobel Prize

are of little account,

while cinematic genius Orson Welles

was despondent in his fifties and sixties

that the only films Hollywood would fund

were biopics about his meteoric rise

to making Citizen Kane at 24,

and acclaimed author Joseph Heller

would fret and fume when fans wondered

when he was going to write

a sequel to his first novel Catch-22,

until at sixty-nine he did,

whereas in my sixties I

am happy to be a complete unknown

because there is still hope that

my best work lies ahead

not a thousand miles behind.

Richard Clarke is an English and English Literature secondary school teacher, with an especial interest in bringing poetry to his students. “Poetry can make a difference, even if only to make us stop and think, stop and smile.” Teaching positions have included at Shore School, the Sydney Church of England Grammar School that counts Kenneth Slessor and Geoffrey Lehmann amongst its old scholars. Richard is a member of Sydney’s Pennant Hills Poets Group, and has had his work published in Australia and the US.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.