1963-2017

 

Dirge

 

The poets die like flies but I am lying slightly to one side,

Contented in my Spain or Siam, content too to keep my hide.

How well they wrote, those friends now fettered, how the Indo-Anglian tongue

Allowed them to be lovely-lettered, their lives lived when the world was young.

 

I’ll live and hold my words in, for I am wearied of hypothesis;

And, in place of getting glory, kisses take from my missis.

 

Then the world shone, by their showing; then publishers seemed to care;

Then calls for cheques of last year’s owing did not fall on empty air.

 

Then newspapers asked them for pieces; and printed them unchanged; and paid;

But now there are so many wheezes which make the craft a thrifty trade.

 

In a wilder whirl of weeklies, tabloids titting on page threes,

I will shirk my duty meekly and kisses take from my missis.

 

They did not care much what the world said: they taught it instead how to speak.

They did not, when a poem pleaded, to meetings go in Mozambique.

 

But I will stay my poems, spending strength now with a shriller pen

My theme and language both defending, to live fourscore years and ten.

 

And if it prove my prime is over, if I’ve no chance at wordly bliss

Why I will spurn so false a lover and kisses take from my missis.

This hand once penned those poems: never shall I find so true a friend.

I’ve a thirst for all forever, but the lines come to an end.

 

So Arun and Dom and Nissim – I will shun their hard-earned grief

And much though I will always miss ’em, in softer shadows find relief.

 

And when I’m ninety and young writers ask why I wrote no more than this

I will answer, “But, you blighters! I kisses took from my missis.”