From June to December: Summer Villanelle
You know exactly what to do—
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh—
I think of little else but you.
It’s bliss to have a lover who,
Touching one shoulder, makes me sigh—
You know exactly what to do.
You make me happy through and through,
The way the sun lights up the sky—
I think of little else but you.
I hardly sleep—an hour or two;
I can’t eat much and this is why—
You know exactly what to do.
The movie in my mind is blue—
As June runs into warm July
I think of little else but you.
But is it love? And is it true?
Who cares? This much I can’t deny:
You know exactly what to do;
I think of little else but you.
Engineers’ Corner
Why isn’t there an Engineers’ Corner in Westminster Abbey? In Britain we’ve always made more fuss of a ballad than a blueprint… How many schoolchildren dream of becoming great engineers?
–Advertisement placed in The Times by the Engineering Council
We make more fuss of ballads than of blueprints —
That’s why so many poets end up rich,
While engineers scrape by in cheerless garrets.
Who needs a bridge or dam? Who needs a ditch?
Whereas the person who can write a sonnet
Has got it made. It’s always been the way,
For everybody knows that we need poems
And everybody reads them every day.
Yes, life is hard if you choose engineering —
You’re sure to need another job as well;
You’ll have to plan your projects in the evenings
Instead of going out. It must be hell.
While well-heeled poets ride around in Daimlers,
You’ll burn the midnight oil to earn a crust,
With no hope of a statue in the Abbey,
With no hope, even, of a modest bust.
No wonder small boys dream of writing couplets
And spurn the bike, the lorry and the train.
There’s far too much encouragement of poets —
That’s why this country’s going down the drain.
Spared
That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love…
–Emily Dickinson
It wasn’t you, it wasn’t me,
Up there, two thousand feet above
A New York street. We’re safe and free,
A little while, to live and love,
Imagining what might have been –
The phone-call from the blazing tower,
A last farewell on the machine,
While someone sleeps another hour,
Or worse, perhaps, to say goodbye
And listen to each other’s pain,
Send helpless love across the sky,
Knowing we’ll never meet again,
Or jump together, hand in hand,
To certain death. Spared all of this
For now, how well I understand
That love is all, is all there is.