Collected Poems | 
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Excerpt from Night #Mail by W.H. Auden. Full poem at
https://allpoetry.com/Night-Mail
#poetrymatters @TheSpineView
Books I gave my husband for Valentine‘s Day. He requested Auden‘s Collected Poems, and the other one found me. 🤷🏼♀️Does book ban include buying books as gifts?🤔
My husband read an interview with Louise Penny. She suggested reading this book for inspiration. He was intrigued. I borrowed it from the Library, so he can decide if it is what he imagines. Massive tome.
The tobacco farmers
were Baptists who considered
smoking a sin.
Justice: permission to peck
a wee bit harder
than we have been pecked.
ROMAN WALL BLUES
Over the heather the wet wind blows
I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose
The rain comes pattering out of the sky
I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why
The mist creeps over the hard grey stone
My girl's in Tungria; I sleep alone
...
Piso's a Christian, he worships a fish
There'd be no kissing if he had his wish
...
When I'm a veteran with only one eye
I shall do nothing but look at the sky
Yesterday was my boy Auden's birthday, so I reread my favorite poems by him.
"He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be /
One against whom there was no official complaint... / The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day / And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way... / Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: / Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard."
- W. H. Auden, "The Unknown Citizen" (1939)
#seasonsreadings2016 #poetry
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 forever: I was wrong.
