Turn on your side and bear the day to me Beloved, sceptre-struck, immured In the glass wall of sleep. Slowly Uncloud the borealis of your eye And sho… - George Barker

I, born in Essex thirty-four
Essentially sexual years ago,
Stepped down, looked around, and saw
I had been cast a little low
In the social register
For the friends whom I now know.
Is a constable a mister?
Bob's your uncle, even so.

My one, my one, my only love,
Hide, hide your face in a leaf,
And let the hot tear falling burn
The stupid heart that will not learn
The everywhere of grief.

To be so closely caught up in the teeth of things that they kill you, no matter how infinitesimally kill you, is, truly, to be a poet: and to be a poet in fact it is additionally necessary that you should possess the tongues and instruments with which to record this series of infinitesimal deaths.