Story of a Hotel Room
Thinking we were safe-insanity!
We went in to make love. All the same
Idiots to trust the little hotel bedroom.
Then in the gloom...
...And who does not know that pair of shutters
With all the awkward hook on them
All screeching whispers? Very well then, in the gloom
We set about acquiring one another
Urgently! But on a temporary basis
Only as guests-just guests of one another's senses.
But idiots to feel so safe you hold back nothing
Because the bed of cold, electric linen
Happens to be illicit...
To make love as well as that is ruinous.
Londoner, Parisian, someone should have warned us
That without permanent intentions
You have absolutely no protection
-If the act is clean, authentic, sumptuous,
The concurring deep love of the heart
Follows the naked work, profoundly moved by it.
Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta The oxford book of twentieth century english verse chosen by Larkin. Mostrar todas as mensagens
Mostrar mensagens com a etiqueta The oxford book of twentieth century english verse chosen by Larkin. Mostrar todas as mensagens
08 fevereiro 2009
17 janeiro 2009
Barry Cole (n. 1936)
The Men Are Coming Back!
They say the men are
Coming back. An elder
Reports her daughter, out
For the morning manna,
As having seen short columns
At the foot of the hills.
There is a loosening of
Muscles and dampness
In the palms of some hands.
Inexplicably, the children
Begin to shout. Some of the
Elder women bolt the doors.
How did she know? asks
Someone. Know they are
Men? Instinct, says a
Harridan in yellow lace.
Does it matter? There are
Few moments to defence.
Even as they watch the
Elders scent defeat. Some
Of the younger are spitting
Upon the red cloth cover
Of a book, rubbing the
Dye across their untouched lips.
They say the men are
Coming back. An elder
Reports her daughter, out
For the morning manna,
As having seen short columns
At the foot of the hills.
There is a loosening of
Muscles and dampness
In the palms of some hands.
Inexplicably, the children
Begin to shout. Some of the
Elder women bolt the doors.
How did she know? asks
Someone. Know they are
Men? Instinct, says a
Harridan in yellow lace.
Does it matter? There are
Few moments to defence.
Even as they watch the
Elders scent defeat. Some
Of the younger are spitting
Upon the red cloth cover
Of a book, rubbing the
Dye across their untouched lips.
Roger McGough (n. 1937)
My cat and i
Girls are simply the prettiest things
My cat and i believe
And we're always saddened
When it's time for them to leave
We watch them titivating
(that often takes a while)
And though they keep us waiting
My cat and i just smile
We like to see them to the door
Say how sad it couldn't last
Then my cat and i go back inside
And talk about the past.
Girls are simply the prettiest things
My cat and i believe
And we're always saddened
When it's time for them to leave
We watch them titivating
(that often takes a while)
And though they keep us waiting
My cat and i just smile
We like to see them to the door
Say how sad it couldn't last
Then my cat and i go back inside
And talk about the past.
10 janeiro 2009
Gavin Bantock (n.1939)
Joy
And Paradise does come
Paradise comes like a breeze and like a breeze
drifts elsewhere than where we are at the time
and we have no way of following the wind
to the world's end.
And Paradise does come
Paradise comes like a breeze and like a breeze
drifts elsewhere than where we are at the time
and we have no way of following the wind
to the world's end.
Douglas Dunn (n.1942)
The Clothes Pit
The young women are obsessed with beauty.
Their old-fashioned sewing machines rattle in Terry Street.
They must keep up, they must keep up.
They wear teasing skirts and latest shoes,
Lush, impermanent coats, American cosmetics.
But they lack intellectual grooming.
In the culture of clothes and little philosophies,
They only have clothes. They do not need to be seen
Carrying a copy of International Times.
Or the Liverpool Poets, the wish to justify their looks
with things beyond themselves. They mix up colours,
And somehow they are often fat and unlovely.
They don’t get high on pot, but get sick on cheap
Spanish Burgundy, or beer in rampant pubs,
And come home supported and kissed and bad-tempered.
But they have bright clothes, bright enough to show they dream
Of places other than this, an inarticulate paradise,
Eating exotic fowl in the sunshine with courteous boys.
Three girls go down the street with the summer wind.
The litter of pop rhetoric blows down Terry Street,
Bounces past their feet, into their lives.
The young women are obsessed with beauty.
Their old-fashioned sewing machines rattle in Terry Street.
They must keep up, they must keep up.
They wear teasing skirts and latest shoes,
Lush, impermanent coats, American cosmetics.
But they lack intellectual grooming.
In the culture of clothes and little philosophies,
They only have clothes. They do not need to be seen
Carrying a copy of International Times.
Or the Liverpool Poets, the wish to justify their looks
with things beyond themselves. They mix up colours,
And somehow they are often fat and unlovely.
They don’t get high on pot, but get sick on cheap
Spanish Burgundy, or beer in rampant pubs,
And come home supported and kissed and bad-tempered.
But they have bright clothes, bright enough to show they dream
Of places other than this, an inarticulate paradise,
Eating exotic fowl in the sunshine with courteous boys.
Three girls go down the street with the summer wind.
The litter of pop rhetoric blows down Terry Street,
Bounces past their feet, into their lives.
04 janeiro 2009
Hugo Williams (n. 1942)
The butcher
The butcher carves veal for two.
The cloudy, frail slices fall over his knife.
His face is hurt by the parting sinews
And he looks up with relief, laying it on the scales.
He is a rosy young man with eyelashes
Like a bullock. He always serves me now.
I think he knows about my life. How we prefer
To eat in when is cold. How someone
With a foreign accent can only cook veal.
He writes the price on the grease-proof packet
And hands it to me courteously. His smile
Is the official seal of my marriage.
The butcher carves veal for two.
The cloudy, frail slices fall over his knife.
His face is hurt by the parting sinews
And he looks up with relief, laying it on the scales.
He is a rosy young man with eyelashes
Like a bullock. He always serves me now.
I think he knows about my life. How we prefer
To eat in when is cold. How someone
With a foreign accent can only cook veal.
He writes the price on the grease-proof packet
And hands it to me courteously. His smile
Is the official seal of my marriage.
Brian Patten (n. 1946)
Portrait of a Young Girl Raped at a Suburban Party
And after this quick bash in the dark
You will rise and go
Thinking of how empty you have grown
And of whether all the evening's care in front of mirrors
And the younger boys disowned
Led simply to this.
Confined to what you are expected to be
By what you are
Out in the frozen garden
You shiver and vomit -
Frightened, drunk among trees,
You wonder at how those acts that called for tenderness
Were far from tender.
Now you have left your titterings about love
And your childishness behind you
Yet still far from being old
You spew up among flowers
And in the warm stale rooms
The party continues.
It seems you saw some use in moving away
From that group of drunken lives
Yet already ten minutes pregnant
In twenty thousand you might remember
This party
This dull Saturday night
When planets rolled out of your eyes
And splashed down in suburban grasses.
And after this quick bash in the dark
You will rise and go
Thinking of how empty you have grown
And of whether all the evening's care in front of mirrors
And the younger boys disowned
Led simply to this.
Confined to what you are expected to be
By what you are
Out in the frozen garden
You shiver and vomit -
Frightened, drunk among trees,
You wonder at how those acts that called for tenderness
Were far from tender.
Now you have left your titterings about love
And your childishness behind you
Yet still far from being old
You spew up among flowers
And in the warm stale rooms
The party continues.
It seems you saw some use in moving away
From that group of drunken lives
Yet already ten minutes pregnant
In twenty thousand you might remember
This party
This dull Saturday night
When planets rolled out of your eyes
And splashed down in suburban grasses.
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