1976
#EnglishWriters
If grief could burn out Like a sunken coal The heart would rest quiet The unrent soul Be as still as a veil
If hands could free you, heart, Where would you fly? Far, beyond every part Of earth this running sky Makes desolate? Would you cross
How distant, the departure of youn… Down valleys, or watching The green shore past the salt—whit… Rising and falling. Cattlemen, or carpenters, or keen
Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty—three (which was rather late for me) — Between the end of the Chatterley… And the Beatles’ first LP.
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…
Is it for now or for always, The world hangs on a stalk? Is it a trick or a trysting—place, The woods we have found to walk? Is it a mirage or miracle,
Love again: wanking at ten past th… (Surely he’s taken her home by now… The bedroom hot as a bakery, The drink gone dead, without showi… To meet tomorrow, and afterwards,
For nations vague as weed, For nomads among stones, Small—statured cross—faced tribes And cobble—close families In mill—towns on dark mornings
I feared these present years, The middle twenties, When deftness disappears, And each event is Freighted with a source—encrusting…
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:
Cut grass lies frail: Brief is the breath Mown stalks exhale. Long, long the death It dies in the white hours
Like the train’s beat Swift language flutters the lips Of the Polish airgirl in the corn… The swinging and narrowing sun Lights her eyelashes, shapes
What do they think has happened, t… To make them like this? Do they s… It’s more grown-up when your mouth… And you keep on pissing yourself,… Who called this morning? Or that,…
I have started to say “A quarter of a century” Or “thirty years back” About my own life. It makes me breathless
To step over the low wall that div… Road from concrete walk above the… Brings sharply back something know… The miniature gaiety of seasides. Everything crowds under the low ho…
