Encounter Poem by Len Webster

We fight:
it seems the natural thing to do
in our situation,
to fight.

Our wretched bodies,
smelling with the sweat of darkness,
flung against the wall
in wild anger.

Untamed,
uncivilized to the point of attacking
unveiled flesh
and tearing into it.

We fight:
and then we laugh at each other
in our ridiculous situation
called love.

By laughing
we turn all that's gone before
into a simple game:
which is only as it should be.


(From 'Behind the Painted Veil', Outposts Publications,
Walton-on-Thames, Surrey,1972)