A la Recherche du Temps Perdu: a Poem by Craig Raine

A la Recherche du Temps Perdu: a Poem

Craig Raine

Don't be put off by the title - the poem is in English and dead easy to read! You get a cocktail of humour and sadness as a picture is pieced together of a person who died from Aids. This is one of the best books I have ever read - and that's from a poetry phobic!

Extract

...at St Pancras Crematorium, I stare,

light-headed with caffeine,
at the light-oak coffin,

wondering what I feel, where I stand....

I watch the coffin vanish
to Mozart on tape, its varnish

about to come up in blisters
and burst into a boa

of full-length, rustling fire,
just as we reach the Dies Irae.

from A La Recherche du Temps Perdu

Parallels
  • Gorleston by Henry Sutton
  • The Laurelude by W N Herbert
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Explicit sexual content