Edward Clarke

Poem: Luke 2:1-7

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Luke 2:1-7 _           It was the time Augustus Caesar had cried pax As children used to do, and said the world must now be taxed, _           When Joseph, following the government decree, Went out of Nazareth and travelled down through Galilee. _           If … Read more

Poetry: Edward Clarke

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At Rudy’s Bar, Alassio (After Thomas Hardy) –                       O how could I order that tuna and chips, –                       And sip my beer and gaze at yachts and cruise ships Beyond the tops of changing booths and beach umbrella tips; –                       And glimpse and catch the sea’s soughing of old truths –                       Through exhaled smoke … Read more

Poetry – Edward Clarke

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Assembly One morning during the first week of Advent, _                                   When I was possessed, After a birthday’s dark exhilarations, _          By a terrible kind of nervousness, We saw, on stage, the judgement of our son, Before his class, the Egyptian pantheon. I was chosen, he said, to be mummified today: _                                    My life was cut … Read more

Poetry in 2020: ‘Dream and so create’

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At the end of 2019, I wrote: In these times it is perhaps inevitable that people will want to write poems about climate change, or Twitter and politics. But poetry knows in its heart, what has already ended inside your consciousness, to which you and the world are gradually catching up. In the greatest poems … Read more

The Firstborn

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_          I thought that I would read the beginning _                      Of the last gospel, but _                      The book fell open at The beginning of the first, my thoughts misdeeming _                      What I needed to write this poem, _          But the book satisfying them. _          My intention was to write about _                      A father and a … Read more

Psalm 95

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95 While someone exhorts us In song to sing to God, I’ve looked askance and asked, is he Among us here or not? And found that question, off its no-man’s land Uptaken then in hand, Lies with sheep in shade, And takes its rest in space, Beneath a large-leafed chestnut, bright With burning candles, placed … Read more

Post-Modern Decrepitude

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If you are complaining about Climate Change, Brexit, Donald Trump, and all the cozening of late capitalism, I will not take you seriously if you have accepted, without very much thought, that there is only ever an arbitrary relationship between a signifier and what it signifies. I will say to you that you are closer … Read more