from Strugnell’s Sonnets

for D. M. Thomas

I

The expense of spirits is a crying shame,

So is the cost of wine. What bard today

Can live like old Khayyám? It’s not the same –

A loaf and Thou and Tesco’s Beaujolais.

I had this bird called Sharon, fond of gin –

Could knock back six or seven. At the price

I paid a high wage for each hour of sin

And that was why I only had her twice.

Then there was Tracey, who drank rum and Coke,

So beautiful I didn’t mind at first

But love grows colder. Now some other bloke

Is subsidising Tracey and her thirst.

I need a woman, honest and sincere,

Who’ll come across on half a pint of beer.

 

IV

Not only marble, but the plastic toys

From cornflake packets will outlive this rhyme:

I can’t immortalise you, love – our joys

Will lie unnoticed in the vault of time.

When Mrs Thatcher has been cast in bronze

And her administration is a page

In some O-level text-book, when the dons

Have analysed the story of our age,

When travel firms sell tours of outer space

And aeroplanes take off without a sound

And Tulse Hill has become a trendy place

And Upper Norwood’s on the underground

Your beauty and my name will be forgotten –

My love is true, but all my verse is rotten.

 

VII

‘At the moment, if you’re seen reading poetry in a train, the carriage empties instantly.’

– Andrew Motion in a Guardian interview

Indeed ’tis true. I travel here and there

On British Rail a lot. I’ve often said

That if you haven’t got the first-class fare

You really need a book of verse instead.

Then, should you find that all the seats are taken,

Brandish your Edward Thomas, Yeats or Pound.

Your fellow-passengers, severely shaken,

Will almost all be loath to stick around.

Recent research in railway sociology

Shows it’s best to read the stuff aloud:

A few choice bits from Motion’s new anthology

And you’ll be lonelier than any cloud.

This stratagem’s a godsend to recluses

And demonstrates that poetry has its uses.