TO HIS TEENAGE SON

“Real men don’t write poems. Everybody knows

they touch emotions with suspicion, those

girlish sensations women talk about -

Or if they feel them, never let them out,

or show them. It’s a game

in which the forfeit is unending shame.

“They sometimes shout – at football matches, say,

where what they feel can just be laughed away,

not linked with any passion bottled up inside.

Men don’t admit that swelling surge of pride

that lifts them up. When all is done,

a man’s a man, you see; his son’s his son.

“Love’s not an issue, never thought about

once boys have left their prams; no doubt

it’s there, but just not mentioned, clean forgot

in all that messy swirl of daily life. It’s not

a word we use. No, pride and love

don’t have that ring of valour; don’t sound tough.

“If men do feel these things, they keep them hid.

We know men don’t write poems…”

…That’s bollocks. This one did.