To Brian Patten

(A Cento and Apostrophe)

Yesterday 

you were my favourite living poet,

there, watching and smiling,

now yesterday seems so far away.

So I wonder - 

did you build your ship of death,

knowing you would need it,

or did you rage -

rage against the dying of the light

and not go gentle into that good night

when it was time to go, to bid farewell

to one’s own self, and find an exit

from the fallen self

and falling skies.

With one quick call

dreams can be aborted

and become like a marooned whale.

Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul, 

has her footing washed away, as age dark flood rises,

cold dash of waves at the ferry-warf - posh and ice in the river,

a gray discouraged sky overhead .. is there anything more?

So you should build your ship of death

for the long journey

towards oblivion,

knowing

a man can his own quietus make.

But  still the heart of me weeps 

to belong

where a slow, sad bird has flown,

only twilight now and the soft “she” of the river

that will last forever

as the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing

on the pink flood,

and the frail soul steps out into the house again

filling the heart with peace.

Lines from :

Laurence Lerner - Raspberries

Paul McCartney - Yesterday

D H Lawrence - The Ship Of Death

Dylan Thomas - Do not Go Gently

D H Lawrence - The Ship of Death

D H Lawrence - Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Brian Patten - Now We Will Either Sleep, Lie Still Or Dress Again

Brian Pattern - Marooned Whales

Walt Whitman - To Think Of Time

D H Lawrence - The Ship Of Death

Brian Patten - The Translation

D H Lawrence - Piano

D H Lawrence - Bei Hennef

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