Thomas Blackburn
An Invitation
Holding with shaking hands a letter from some
Official — high up, no doubt in his Ministry —
I note that I am invited to Birmingham,
There pedagogues to address, for a decent fee.
‘We like to meet,’ he writes, ‘men eminent
In the field of letters each year’ — and that’s well put,
Though I find his remark not wholly relevant
To this red-eyed fellow whose mouth tastes rank as soot.
No doubt what he’s thinking of is poetry
When ‘Thomas Blackburn’ he writes, and not the fuss
A life makes when it has no symmetry,
Though, of course the term, ‘a poet’, being posthumous,
Since I’m no stiff, is inappropriate.
What I can confirm is the struggle that never lets up
Between the horses of Plato beneath my yoke,
One after Light, and for Hell not giving a rap,
The other only keen on infernal smoke;
And poems . . . ? From time to time they commemorate
Some particularly dirty battle between these two.
I put the letter down — what’s the right note?
‘Dear Sir,’ I type, ‘how nice to speak to you!’
Page(s) 6-7
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