PLEASE HELP MY FRIEND FIND A POEM SHE WANTS TO USE AT A MEMORIAL SERVICE:
My friend writes:
"Last night I had a vague memory of a poem once heard at a memorial, which spoke eloquently of the specific quotidian details that loom as a loss to us, when a loved one dies. The poem, I remember, referred to missing the voice on the telephone (one that would call and talk about weather or politics). THe writer was someone modern whose name was recognizable but not usually associated with serious thought. Almost like Ogden Nash (ugh).
"I would love to find this, to see if it's as good as remembered. But I don't know just how. Can you mull this for me? Thanks."
And thanks from me (Marian).
I didn't find the answer, but I did find this by Paul Elie on Ted Hughes:
[www.findarticles.com]
I doubt that either of these would be the answer either, but the mention of a writer not usually associated with serious poetry made me think of Hilaire Belloc...
The Telephone
To-night in million-voiced London I
Was lonely as the million-pointed sky
Until your single voice. Ah! So the sun
Peoples all heaven, although he be but one.
Hilaire Belloc
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For the Dead
I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer
The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself
I have always wondered about the left-over
energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped
or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting long after midnight
Adrienne Rich
Maybe Noel Coward; or something by Clive James (I've mislaid my copy of his selected poems).
This one by Noel Coward may have some of the feel of the one your friend is looking for. It doesn't mention phone conversations about politics, nor is it referring particularly to memories about people dead and gone, but it could perhaps be used as part of a memorial occasion if introduced in the context of recollections of the deceased.
Nothing is Lost
Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2022 09:20PM by IanB.
There's also this old one, though if it was the one your friend was looking for, I imagine you would have quickly found it for her.
These Foolish Things
Words By: Holt Marvell
From the Musical Revue: Spread It Abroad - 1936
A cigarette that bears a lipstick's traces
An airline ticket to romantic places
And still my heart has wings
These foolish things remind me of you
A tinkling piano in the next apartment
Those stumbling words that told you what my heart meant
A fairground's painted swings
These foolish things remind me of you
You came, you saw
You conquered me
When you did that to me
I knew somehow, this had to be
The winds of March that make
my heart a dancer
The telephone that rings but who's to answer
Oh, how the ghost of you clings
These foolish things remind me of you
The smile of Turner and the scent of roses
The waiter whistling as the last bar closes
The song that Crosby sings
These foolish things remind me of you
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2022 09:22PM by IanB.
What comes to my mind is the one about the guy whose one parent keeps on doing things as if the other were still alive, until that parent dies and the son keeps the phone number in his address book and even rings it occasionally, though he knows there won't be an answer. Unfortunately I don't have time to look properly for it just now - but if it is that, and no-one else recognises it from this garbled description, I'll keep mulling while I work and see if it turns up in my subconscious.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2022 11:54AM by marian2.
I think this is the one marian2 is thinking of-
Long Distance II
Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.
Tony Harrison
You might also suggest one of my favorite Stephen Fryer poems-
A fishknife, stolen from a restaurant in Hull
And the label from a bottle of Sancerre.
You taught me the right way to eat fish there,
And said, without the wine, it would be dull.
A book, ‘The Shipping News’, in paperback
You read to me, aloud, on the train to Rome.
And as you did, your eyes made mine their home.
Said I must keep it, must not give it back.
A cashmere jacket. Oh God, the cashmere jacket.
A gift, you said: our anniversary.
That first act of love between you and me.
No wine, no books for a week: it cost a packet.
An envelope. One side, crossed out, addressed to you.
The other side addressed to me, by you, to be a surprise.
And I promised, love, that not until you died would my eyes
Read what was written inside it: a villanelle, or sonnet, or haiku.
Last item. A villanelle.
Hell.
Stephen
what a beautiful poem
Spot on, Pam, that was the poem I couldn't place. Thanks - I don't suppose it is the one requested, but it was nattering at me. And the Stephen Fryer one is terrific - I've not seen any of his before. Does it have a title?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2022 04:56AM by marian2.
Yes, I love Stephen's one. It is terribly impressive. Thanks for posting it Pam.
Stephen's poem is titled Bequests, go here to see title and poem on the U.S.P.: [www.emule.com] />
Here's Stephen's latest. I know he is too modest to share it, so I will post it for him:
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Blackberries
All along the lane, the blackberries. I was four,
that October when my father planted them, the tiny shrubs
delivered by the lame boy from the nursery, who stayed
for tea and Dundee cake, made by my mother
that morning. Backberries I called them, trying hard
to say what my father said, mimic his deep Scots burr;
and he let me plant the last one, all by myself.
It went in crooked, but he left it as it was.
Wee Stephen’s blackberry bush.
I was fortyfour, along the lane for his funeral,
a dark October in the rain. Unpicked and wizened,
they drooped from branches, lay on dank earth.
My mother cooked no pies that year.
I noted, though, them all upstanding in the wet,
the bushes, bar Wee Stephen’s crooked one,
bringing up the rear. My metaphor for failure,
for failure my father never mentioned.
Twenty more years she lasted, and I paid
the lame boy to tend her garden. He it was
found her dead. He it was kept for me
the last blackberry pie she made. In the dark
the blackberry bushes will guide you
down the lane to home. You know you’re there
when the last one’s errant branches brush your hand.
Stephen