Conviction (IV)
I like to get off with people,
I like to lie in their arms
I like to be held and lightly kissed,
Safe from all alarms.
I like to laugh and be happy
With a beautiful kiss,
I tell you, in all the world
There is no bliss like this.
poem by Stevie Smith
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Bag-Snatching in Dublin
Sisely
Walked so nicely
With footsteps so discreet
To see her pass
You'd never guess
She walked upon the street.
Down where the Liffey waters' turgid flood
Churns up to greet the ocean-driven mud,
A bruiser in fix
Murdered her for 6/6.
poem by Stevie Smith
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My Heart Goes Out
My heart goes out to my Creator in love
Who gave me Death, as end and remedy.
All living creatures come to quiet Death
For him to eat up their activity
And give them nothing, which is what they want although
When they are living they do not think so.
poem by Stevie Smith
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I Remember
It was my bridal night I remember,
An old man of seventy-three
I lay with my young bride in my arms,
A girl with t.b.
It was wartime, and overhead
The Germans were making a particularly heavy raid on Hampstead.
Harry, do they ever collide?
I do not think it has ever happened,
Oh my bride, my bride.
poem by Stevie Smith
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To the Tune of the Coventry Carol
The nearly right
And yet not quite
In love is wholly evil
And every heart
That loves in part
Is mortgaged to the devil
I loved or thought
I loved in sort
Was this to love akin?
To take the best
And leave the rest
And let the devil in?
O lovers true
And others too
Whose best is only better
Take my advice
Shun compromise
Forget him and forget her
poem by Stevie Smith
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Drugs Made Pauline Vague
Drugs made Pauline vague.
She sat one day at the breakfast table
Fingering in a baffled way
The fronds of the maidenhair plant.
Was it the salt you were looking for dear?
said Dulcie, exchanging a glance with the Brigadier.
Chuff chuff Pauline what's the matter?
Said the Brigadier to his wife
Who did not even notice
What a handsome couple they made.
poem by Stevie Smith
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Not Waving but Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
poem by Stevie Smith
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Pad, Pad
I always remember your beautiful flowers
And the beautiful kimono you wore
When you sat on the couch
With that tigerish crouch
And told me you loved me no more.
What I cannot remember is how I felt when you were unkind
All I know is, if you were unkind now I should not mind.
Ah me, the power to feel exaggerated, angry and sad
The years have taken from me. Softly I go now, pad pad.
poem by Stevie Smith
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My Soul
In the flame of the flickering fire
The sins of my soul are few
And the thoughts in my head are the thoughts of a bed
With a solitary view.
But the eye of eternal consciousness
Must blink as a bat blinks bright
Or ever the thoughts in my head be stilled
On the brink of eternal night.
Oh feed to the golden fish his egg
Where he floats in his captive bowl,
To the cat his kind from the womb born blind,
And to the Lord my soul.
poem by Stevie Smith
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Tender Only To One
Tender only to one
Tender and true
The petals swing
To my fingering
Is it you, or you, or you?
Tender only to one
I do not know his name
And the friends who fall
To the petals’ call
May think my love to blame.
Tender only to one
This petal holds a clue
The face it shows
But too well knows
Who I am tender to.
[...] Read more
poem by Stevie Smith
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