The dream lover of Edward Zuminga (writing as Theodora Sitné Jones)

Tropical romance, late yesterday evening

Here is another pseudonymous poem from our false personas (OK personae) competition at Christmas.

Here I was adopting a more carefully realised character than Mr Three Eighths in that Theodora is known to be the eldest daughter of an ex-patriot English painter, raised on a smallish (unnamed) Pacific island, educated (badly) in Southern California, and finally settled back in the UK where she can experience properly grim weather...

This poem, however, dates from her earlier, more tropical, period.

Adopting a false persona can be strangely liberating.  The first instinct is, of course, to change gender.  No idea why.  Possibly we all believe (wrongly) that this conceals our identities.  Maybe we think (again wrongly) that it changes our writing more than any other factor.  Whatever the reason it is a fact the imaginary personalities in our competition showed the reverse ratio of sexes compared to the real personalities.

After that you try to change style, form and subject matter.  Not much I could have done about the middle one, as I use all sorts of forms.  Also I suspect I failed a bit at the first as reading this again it does sound rather like me (although I think almost nobody spotted me, so maybe I'm wrong...)

As for subject matter, well it's a guy with a strangely-described, imaginary lover.  I'd never write about that :-)

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The dream lover of Edward Zuminga


is carved from butter and lives, besieged
by dishes, knives, napkin rings
and all that mundane paraphernalia
from a roadside eating-house that also isn't here.

She limps slightly and speaks
of it only when plied with quantities
of drink, over-priced from the only bar
open after the flies are all asleep.

She has never told the truth.
She wears deep cotton
colours, to contradict her skin.
She believes in coincidence,

that her sister's name is the same as hers
by chance, or possibly bribery.
Edward cannot love her
in the manner she deserves.

For all that she exists
only inside his noontime slumbered eye,
she visits infrequently
is cool about gifts
has never spent the night.