Best Auden Poems
Above: Wystan in fancy dress
as a beetle -1912
Photographs of Wystan
One of the world's
greatest poets
in a pose, similar
to an Anne Gedde's baby
Balancing beetle antennae
his head at an angle
a satin suit padded to
emulate the chest
of a beetle's,
Spare legs of black velvet
dangling while
he stands upright
feet together, his
expression, militant
Certain in this moment
of his current
resemblance to
a beetle
At five years old,
to think he held
potential for such poetry
A black and white photo,
frontspiece for "The Life of a Poet"
It appears to have been
snapped just before an
exhalation of his cigarrette.
At 65
his face is wrinkled
eye bags reminiscent of
a sharpei puppy
but it is the forehead
that so amazes
with grids as square as graphic paper
as if the poetry
had been mapped out
on his face
I've seen mud, cracking
like that, on a dried up river bed
His fingers are long, chiselled
and in relaxed contact
with that cigarette as
he holds back a chuckle
with the smoke
His air is of a casual formality- a waistcoat
teamed with with a plaid sports coat
In retrospect, here, he had
reached his full potential
I wonder if someone
uttered at his funeral
"Stop all the clocks."
WH AUDEN night mail
____________
| == |
| == |
| mr auden |
| London |
| EC1 |
|____________|
English playright W H Auden
also poetized with his pen
Famed for his 'Stop the clock'
his.Funeral blues gave many a shock
US Verse, after Auden
by Michael R. Burch
"Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful." - W. H. Auden
Verse has small value in our Unisphere,
nor is it fit for windy revelation.
It cannot legislate less taxing fears;
it cannot make us, several, a nation.
Enumerator of our sins and dreams,
it pens its cryptic numbers, and it sings,
a little quaintly, of the ways of love.
(It seems of little use for lesser things.)
Published by The Raintown Review, The Barefoot Muse and Poetry Life & Times
The Unisphere mentioned is a spherical stainless steel representation of the earth constructed for the 1964 New York World's Fair. It was commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the space age and dedicated to "Man's Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe." The lines quoted in the epigraph are from W. H. Auden's love poem "Lullaby." Keywords/Tags: Auden, unisphere, universe, together, lullaby, voice, verse, value, revelation, cryptic, legislate, enumerator, sin, sins, dreams, love, sing, sings, singing, quaint, quaintly, lesser, greater, mortality, beautiful, writing
"Let your last thinks be thanks"
W.H. Auden famously wrote
Making Wystan Hugh
My favorite male poet
Note: I have excluded all
of my favorite male
poets on Poetry Soup,
of course! :-)