forlorn

for Catia Castrucci¹

forlorn, like those dead roses Coles
daren’t discount.

forlorn. the very word is like a bell.²
a wandering
between worlds.³

1. This poem was previously published on the blog Common or Garden Poets, on 29 December 2026. ↩︎
2. This line is from John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale (1820, stanza 8):
   
   Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
            To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
   ↩︎
3. Referring to Matthew Arnold’s Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855, lines 82/83):
   
   Wandering between two worlds, one dead
   one powerless to be born.
   
   Line 85 includes the word ‘forlorn’. ↩︎