NEW POETRY FROM ENGLAND, IRELAND,
AND
SCOTLAND
Michael Longley
DETOUR
I want my funeral to include this detour
Down the single street of a small market town,
On either side of the procession SUGh names
As Philbin, O'Malley, MacNamara, Keane .
A reverent pause to let a herd of milkers pass
Will bring me face to face with grubby parsnips,
Cauliflowers that glitter after a sunshower,
Then hay rakes, broom handles, gas cylinders.
Reflected in the slow sequence of shop windows
I shall be part of the action when his wife
Draining the potatoes into a steamy sink
Calls to the butcher to get ready for dinner
And the publican descends to change a barrel.
From behind the one locked door for miles around
I shall prolong a detailed conversation
With the man in the concrete telephone kiosk
About where my funeral might be going next.
Anne Stevenson
STUDY FOR A PORTRAIT OF VAN GOGH
AFTER FRANCIS BACON
I paint the rich and the damned.
They wince and buy me.
He
only painted the sun
as poor as himself.
