poetry is such a dangerous art. no space for pretense. Auden's 'stop all the clocks' is the most moving song of desolation. it cannot have come unbidden. what loss might have forged it?
it sets my skin prickling every time i read it. every verse is a lament, controlled and absolute.
filled with the black despair that comes down like a thick velvet curtain - suffocating and blinding. the same terror that jolts one awake from nightmares where loved ones die in strange ways. the landscape of dreams where every law of the ordinary world is a mockery of itself, where every step is a step to doom; every face a quick-morphing mask. nothing, nothing can be done. where everything of value can go in a snap. and one is defenseless against it.
the daily terror that mothers and lovers endure.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
- W. H. Auden
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