Office Friendships -- Gavin Ewart

Guest poem submitted by Vikram Doctor, as part of his
theme "Poems at Work":

(Poem #540) Office Friendships Eve is madly in love with Hugh And Hugh is keen on Jim. Charles is in love with very few And few are in love with him. Myra sits typing notes of love With romantic pianist's fingers. Dick turns his eyes to the heavens above Where Fran's divine perfume lingers. Nicky is rolling eyes and tits And flaunting her wiggly walk Everybody is thrilled to bits By Clive's suggestive talk. Sex suppressed will go berserk, But it keeps us all alive. It's a wonderful change from wives and work. And it ends at half past five. -- Gavin Ewart

I love Ewart, he's always fun and cool. And offices _are_ sort of cruisy places,
especially given the amount of time we spend in them these days, and the modern
management emphasis on how we all have to be close and one big family. So we all
spend this much time together, and it's hardly surprising then that our thoughts
turn towards incest... with the predictably disastrous consequences.

It's also why, I think, that all offices I've been in are obsessed with food.
Everyone is always eating, offering food around, going out for lunches,
comparing lunchboxes. Since you can't have the one kind of sensory
gratification, you overdo the other.

Vikram.

A Great Poem -- Gavin Ewart

(Poem #283) A Great Poem This is a great poem. How I suffer! How I suffer! How I suffer! This is a great poem. Full of true emotion. -- Gavin Ewart

This is truly a great poem. Nothing more needs to be said :-).

thomas.

PS. Another Ewart poem, along with a short bio, con be read at poem #263

Sonnet: Dolce stil novo -- Gavin Ewart

Thanks to Vikram Doctor for suggesting Gavin Ewart (whom I hadn't even heard of
before)...

(Poem #263) Sonnet: Dolce stil novo That woman who to me seems most a woman I do not compare to angels --- or digress on schismatic Popes --- or exalt above the terrestrial or consider a madonna. Nor do I search in others for her lineaments, or wish for Death to free me from desire, or consider Love an archer; or see her as a Daphne, fleeing the embraces of Apollo, transformed into a laurel. I am not lost in the amorous wood of Virgil. But although I do not rhyme or use the soft Italian, my love is a strong love, and for a certain person. Human beings are human; I can see a man might envy her bath water as it envelops her completely. That's what my love would like to do; and Petrarch can take a running jump at himself --- or (perhaps?) agree. -- Gavin Ewart

A straightforward sonnet, more than mildly reminiscent of Shakespeare's 'My
Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun ' [1]. Nothing more to say, so I'll say
it.

thomas.

[1] Sonnet 130, poem #44

[Biography]

Ewart, Gavin Buchanan (1916-1996):  Ewart first published poems at the age of 17
in Geoffrey Grigson's New verse of 1933. After graduating at Christ's College,
Cambridge, he served in the Royal Artillery from 1940 to 1946, and worked for
the British Council from 1946 to 1952, and then as a copywriter in advertising
until 1971, when he became a full-time freelance writer. He became a Fellow of
the Royal Society of Literature in 1981. His works include Be my guest (1975),
Or where a young penguin lies screaming (1978),  All my little ones(1978), The
first eleven (1977) and No fool like an old fool (1976).

[Minstrels Links]

My favourite sonnet is Keats' unforgettable 'On First Looking Into Chapman's
Homer', which you can read at poem #12

A poem similar in its matter-of-factness and insight is Edwin Morgan's 'The
Unspoken', which can be found at poem #147

And as in so many other things, Shakespeare was there first and did it best with
Sonnet 130, 'My Mistress' Eyes', at poem #44

[Random Thought]

Is it just me or is there a hint of Blake in the juxtaposition of 'lineaments'
with 'desire'?