03-01-2022, 10:35 PM
I lay remembering
From the moment we’re born, we’re dying,
all, all terribly,
slowly or swiftly,
lying to ourselves,
denying bland reality
with convenient ghosts.
I sympathise with Yeats
and Blake against banality -
an old man’s senility
can start the dead.
Darling, you were lovely tonight,
all shuddering loins,
the purloined joys of youth,
your mouth
round with affectation.
And afterwards, when you had left,
the car’s fan belt squeaking,
I lay remembering
a moonlit bridge in Venice.
From the moment we’re born, we’re dying,
all, all terribly,
slowly or swiftly,
lying to ourselves,
denying bland reality
with convenient ghosts.
I sympathise with Yeats
and Blake against banality -
an old man’s senility
can start the dead.
Darling, you were lovely tonight,
all shuddering loins,
the purloined joys of youth,
your mouth
round with affectation.
And afterwards, when you had left,
the car’s fan belt squeaking,
I lay remembering
a moonlit bridge in Venice.