SNAKESKIN: The Poetry Webzine

Anachronisms

"Nature seems (the more we look into it) made up of antipathies: without something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and action. Life would turn to a stagnant pool, were it not ruffled by the jarring interests, the unruly passions, of men".

- Hazlitt , 'On the Pleasure of Hating'

I’m in a cafe, thinking no more than
what I might have for breakfast.

I glimpse the shape of a passerby -
the smell of well-fried eggs and bacon

holding me. But when my food
arrives, I find myself agitated.

I don’t know why. Then I see
the passerby again, but this time

I recognise him as
William Hazlitt,

who convinced my younger self that
hating is productive. I’m glad though

that he passed by a second time.

Tristan Moss

If you have any thoughts about these poems, Tristan Moss would like to hear them