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        Pete Atkin >> Words >> Clive James - New poem
        
(Message started by: Tiny_Montgomery on Today at 20:27)

Title: Clive James - New poem
Post by Tiny_Montgomery on Today at 20:27

Clive James has a very fine and moving poem, Event Horizon, in the latest number of the TLS (May 10.) It's a six-stanza meditation on approaching ends. Here's a representative sample:

"Never to taste again her pretty mouth!
It's been forever, though, since last we kissed,
Shadows evaporate as they go south,
Torn, by whatever longings still persist,
Into a tattered wisp, a streak of air,
And then not even that. They get nowhere."

I think Clive James said of his beloved Larkin that he made despair beautiful. Something similar is taking place in Event Horizon, and although the poem is ultimately about the importance of living in the here and now, it must make tough reading for his family and friends.