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The Truth About Auden

Auden was a poet
As one is a lawyer
A doctor or an architect;
He rarely took his work home
And even his moments of leisure
Were blocked out in a schedule

He felt about his work and subjects
As a lawyer ‘feels’ about
A particularly challenging tax agreement,
A submission to a judge well delivered,
Or a client who – by a careful
Argument from some laws of a land -
Escapes a prison sentence

He was rarely estatic
Just as he was also rarely miserable
And felt God’s touch just once,
Sitting on the lawn
At the end of a dinner party

He could keep
The world of thought
Far from what he actually did

And with this in mind,
His conversion to the Catholic Church of Angles
Was the chance to accept
A well tried framework of certainties
And a vague commitment
To acts of charity

It was proclaimed – in the interests
Of respectability – that he married Erika
Mann, and – in his private war on Fascism -
Broadcast radio from within Spain’s Civil War;

But the unproclaimed truth (if one digs deeper)
Is that Wystan and Erika
Never shared a bed nor more than
Friendship and a useful contract,
And alas his radio career
Lasted seven days, in a language
No listener could speak

It’s not that he was bad
Or did not care -
It was just that
He was a gay Englishman
Living in New York
Who wore slippers all day long,
Read detective novels,
Solved crossword puzzles,
And went to bed
On the strict stroke of nine.

- 15/10/02

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