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The Beautiful Librarians by Sean O’Brien

The Beautiful Librarians The beautiful librarians are dead, The fairly recent graduates who sat Like Françoise Hardy’s shampooed sisters With cardigans across their shoulders On quiet evenings at the issue desk, Stamping books and never looking up At where I stood in adoration.

Once I glimpsed the staffroom Where they smoked and (if the novels Were correct) would speak of men. I still see the blue Minis they would drive Back to their flats around the park, To Blossom Dearie and red wine Left over from a party I would never

Be a member of. Their rooms looked down On dimming avenues of lime. I shared the geography but not the world It seemed they were establishing With such unfussy self-possession, nor The novels they were writing secretly That somehow turned to ‘Mum’s old stuff’.

Never to even brush in passing Yet nonetheless keep faith with them, The ice queens in their realms of gold – It passes time that passes anyway. Book after book I kept my word Elsewhere, long after they were gone And all the brilliant stock was sold.

#francoise hardy #poetry #quotes #poem

themaninthegreenshirt reblogged

themaninthegreenshirt

Viciously, then, I lock my door. The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside Ushers in evening rain. Once more Uncontradicting solitude Supports me on its giant palm; And like a sea-anemone Or simple snail, there cautiously Unfolds, emerges, what I am.

Philip Larkin

#philip larkin #poetry #poem #Poems #literature #writers

themaninthegreenshirt

New eyes each year

Find old books here,

And new books,too,

Old eyes renew;

So youth and age

Like ink and page

In this house join,

Minting new coin.

Philip Larkin

#philip larkin #poets #poetry #poem #lit #writers

themaninthegreenshirt

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

#ts eliot #poet #poem #poetry #writers #lit #t.s. eliot

themaninthegreenshirt

They’re changing the guard at Buckingham Palace - Christopher Robin went down with Alice. We looked for the King, but he never came. “Well, God take care of him, all the same,” Says Alice.

A.A. Milne

#aa milne #A.A. Milne #quotes #poetry #poem #england #prince philip #Illustration #winnie the pooh

themaninthegreenshirt

It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind, Or not untrue and not unkind.

Philip Larkin

#philip larkin #poetry #poem #poets #writers #literature #quotes #the whitsun weddings

themaninthegreenshirt

When books have all seized up like the books in graveyards And reading and even speaking have been replaced

Louis MacNeice

#Louis MacNeice #poetry #poem #literature #barter books #my pic #book shops #book store

themaninthegreenshirt

Summer is fading: The leaves fall in ones and twos From trees bordering The new recreation ground.

Philip Larkin

#philip larkin #poetry #poem #poets #autumn

themaninthegreenshirt

Those long uneven lines Standing as patiently As if they were stretched outside The Oval or Villa Park, The crowns of hats, the sun On moustached archaic faces Grinning as if it were all An August Bank Holiday lark

MCMXIV by Phillip Larkin Never such innocence again

#world war 1 #ww1 #poetry #poem #poets #philip larkin #england

themaninthegreenshirt

Philip Larkin’s room in Belfast, 1950 by Philip Larkin

I detest my room Its specially chosen junk, The good books, the good bed, And my life, in perfect order.

#philip larkin #poetry #poem #poet #photography

themaninthegreenshirt

Philip Larkin

#philip larkin #poetry #poems #poem #England #literature

themaninthegreenshirt

Sir John Betjeman chalks up the final stanza of Philip Larkin’s poem, Here

Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken, Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken, Luminously-peopled air ascends; And past the poppies bluish neutral distance Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence: Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.

#John Betjeman #philip larkin #poetry #poem #poets #writers #literature #england

themaninthegreenshirt

The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time.

Philip Larkin, self-portrait [1957]

#philip larkin #poetry #poet #literature #writer #quotes #poem #death #hedgehog #lawn mower #self portrait #photography #shaving #england

themaninthegreenshirt

LESTER YOUNG by Ted Joans

Sometimes he was cool like an eternal blue flame burning in the old Kansas City nunnery Sometimes he was happy ’til he’d think about his birth place and its blood stained clay hills and crow-filled trees Most times he was blowin’ on the wonderful tenor sax of his, preachin’ in very cool tones, shouting only to remind you of a certain point in his blue messages He was our president as well as the minister of soul stirring Jazz, he knew what he blew, and he did what a prez should do, wail, wail, wail. There were many of them to follow him and most of them were fair — but they never spoke so eloquently in so a far out funky air. Our prez done died, he know’d this would come but death has only booked him, alongside Bird, Art Tatum, and other heavenly wailers. Angels of Jazz — they don’t die — they live they live — in hipsters like you and I

__________

Ted Joans (1928-2003) poet, artist, and trumpet player. His artistic work was heavily influenced by jazz rhythms. A former room-mate of Charlie Parker’s, Ted coined the phrase “Bird Lives!” upon Parker’s death.

#Ted Joans #poetry #poem #Beat Generation #Lester Young #jazz