In Memory of W.H. Auden

[lnhammer]

I

He disappeared in the middle of the night:
The streets were dark, the airport almost deserted,
The stop-lights on an automatic cycle;
The clocks ticked in the hollow of the morning.
O all the horoscopes we have agree
The day of his death was just another day.

He was healthy his last afternoon
Except for his stomach's proud revolt
At a bit of undigested potato;
The attic of his brain was a jumble
Of phrases for dinner conversation
And yet unwritten notes for lines,
And that evening's wine
Was modified in his gut into a glow.

If, far from his hotel,
A policeman arrested a drunk and disorderly,
A housewife thought of vacuuming the floor,
A student had half his fliers left after he was done,
And a child stole a toy from her older brother,
If rain fell on the mountain and not in the valley,
That was not unusual for that time of year.

O all the tea leaves we have read agree
The day of his death was just another day.

II

You were pompous like us; your gift survived most of it:
Chester's infidelities, communism,
Your drinking; you couldn't not write poetry.
Now we have your poems, or some of them at least,
The ones not quashed or clipped, that executors
Are not allowed to tamper with; they flow
From the presses of the publisher to the stores
And shelves of isolation; they sit there,
A way of dust collection, a book.

III

Earth, in memory, please swerve
From your astronomic curve,
Grieving for your favored son
Crash into the bloody sun.

No one else was seen to weep,
But his housemaid, for a week;
Critics since have ripped him up,
Readers buy some upstart pup;

Time with casual utility
Damns him for posterity:
He will always be defamed
For deleting what gave shame.

Notice, Poet, what we curse:
If you want a fatter purse
Add, not trim, to your collection
Or lose sales for your defection.

—6 June 1994

Have I mentioned that I sometimes write parodies?

---L.