Tuesday 27 January 2009

Funeral Blues - W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,


Silence the pianos and with muffled drum


Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.





Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead


Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.


Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,


Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.





He was my North, my South, my East and West,


My working week and my Sunday rest,


My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;


I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.





The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,


Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,


Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;


For nothing now can ever come to any good.





- Beautifully tragic. This poem captures the unbearable feeling of loss which consumes every fibre of our being. Auden has rawness that could bring me to tears and portrays loss as gut-wrenchingly horrific as it feels...

Monday 5 January 2009

Giving Up Smoking - Wendy Cope


There’s not a Shakespeare sonnet

Or a Beethoven quartet

That’s easier to like than you

Or harder to forget.


You think that sounds extravagant?

I haven’t finished yet –

I like you more than I would like

To have a cigarette.


- Cope says that no-one can understand what an intense love poem this is unless they have been addicted to nicotine and I totally agree.