Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty—three
(which was rather late for me) —
Between the end of the Chatterley
And the Beatles’ first LP.

Down stucco sidestreets,
Where light is pewter
And afternoon mist
Brings lights on in shops
Above race—guides and rosaries,

My age fallen away like white swad
Floats in the middle distance, bec
An inhabited cloud. I bend closer
A lighted tenement scuttling with
O you tall game I tired myself wi

They say eyes clear with age,
As dew clarifies air
To sharpen evenings,
As if time put an edge
Round the last shape of things

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am star
The rapid clouds, the moon’s clean
Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed garde
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked s

They fuck you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their t

You do not come dramatically, with
That rear up with my life between
And dash me butchered down beside
The horses panicking; nor as a cla
Clearly set out to warn what can b

At one the wind rose,
And with it the noise
Of the black poplars.
Long since had the living
By a thin twine

Closed like confessionals, they th
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaqu
They come to rest at any kerb:

The little lives of earth and form
Of finding food, and keeping warm,
Are not like ours, and yet
A kinship lingers nonetheless:
We hanker for the homeliness