To Sir Philip, Qualified Thanks

Dear, why make you more of a blade than me?
If it do splash, I plunge, I plunge unsung;
It it hang well, better still am I hung;
If it be long, yet but a blade can be.
Heavy it is, yet lighter worth than me;
It swings, my dance thy own step oft does prove;
Displayed, perhaps it bolsters you above,
But undisplayed is my soul fetched to thee.
Yet while I languish, it that post-room tips,
That lap doth lap, nay wins, in spite of spite,
This cumbered mate grinds on thy sugared hips,
Alas, if you grant only such delight
To witless bars, then love, I hope, since wit
Becomes a log, will soon ease me of it.

And Why

I love him with the kind self love
That makes you love Pierre; King George;
Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke;
I love where Willy Yeats fucks up.
Yellow Christmas a time ago
This man, of men, my sympathy’s
Chief holder, in Mummy’s ex-street,

Met Oscar, and was shone on, just like us,
Stammered and glowered and told Cyril stories.
Two men who saved their stock against the tide,
But Wilde? What could fat Oscar have thought?
Seeing a countryman who couldn’t work
A room, but breathed the truth,
If rarely spoke it.

To the dead man I love

Soon I will pass Auberon Waugh
En route to the stark calling point
The make or break of William Yeats,
Delay and worship of the cruel,
The pity of Miss Florence Farr,
Olivia unrecognised
(For love ain’t letters)

– lack of fruit
In cruelty’s chase, then, schadenfraud,
Your life vested in John MacBride;
Relish each drunk spat frown and kick,
Get hold of history’s verdict,
Get Maud in France (so by the by
And fly-by) and Iseult –

Named for Blanchemains? The stand-in, yes,
So much for “natural declension
Of the soul”. But you you saved,
Razed down Responsibilities,
Workmanlike gentle double helix,
Through compromise and fudge.

Note

The birthdays of my legends I
Leave unrecorded - please assume
Nine of the clock and eight hours' sleep
A silent and a vile room.

What Milady Means

Once wide, the slopes began to lap
Inwards a bunch of years ago;
So that that sidereal pair
That dances and dances so well
The ur-self and the fancy-girl
Underwent passes.

And for the rest it is substance
That overtook her hazy hair
Made it infested and frayed down.
But my night’s lady’s still of night,
For all she steps in faytour’s mould,
And has seen through my softliness.

She was my handmaid and she knows
None better, how to sneer.

Head Office

An inhouse style guide
Makes a killing
During suicide.

Dodge the Bullet

When things like love one cares about
Jar one's jaw in beyond endurance
One lies in bed glumly awake
And howls against one's phone insurance.