INTERACTION

Talking In Bed
Philip Larkin

Talking in bed ought to be easiest
Lying together there goes back so far
An emblem of two people being honest.

Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside the wind's incomplete unrest
builds and disperses clouds about the sky.

And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind
Or not untrue and not unkind.

Mr Burnside again, with 'The Good neighbour'.

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarch ... oemId=1180

Very good documentary about Norman MacCaig this coming Wednesday:

http://uk-tv-guide.com/programme-detail ... cumentary/

Tombstones in the Starlight
Dorothy Parker

I. The Minor Poet

His little trills and chirpings were his best.
No music like the nightingale's was born
Within his throat; but he, too, laid his breast
Upon a thorn.


II. The Pretty Lady

She hated bleak and wintry things alone.
All that was warm and quick, she loved too well-
A light, a flame, a heart against her own;
It is forever bitter cold, in Hell.

III. The Very Rich Man

He'd have the best, and that was none too good;
No barrier could hold, before his terms.
He lies below, correct in cypress wood,
And entertains the most exclusive worms.


IV. The Fisherwoman

The man she had was kind and clean
And well enough for every day,
But, oh, dear friends, you should have seen
The one that got away!


V. The Crusader

Arrived in Heaven, when his sands were run,
He seized a quill, and sat him down to tell
The local press that something should be done
About that noisy nuisance, Gabriel.


VI. The Actress

Her name, cut clear upon this marble cross,
Shines, as it shone when she was still on earth;
While tenderly the mild, agreeable moss
Obscures the figures of her date of birth

I've just real-time reviewed Joel Lane's new poetry book THE AUTUMN MYTH. http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/201 ... joel-lane/

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http://poetry.todd-fischer.com/2010/12/my-muse.html
I am pleased with this muse name-check in this 1997 poem Todd Fischer posted a couple of days ago, but I can't imagine *anything* I wrote inspired *everything* in this poem!

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MY WEBSITE: www.nemonymous.com