Brian Patten Poems

You lose your love for her and then
It is her who is lost,
And then it is both who are lost,
And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.
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When I think of her sparkling face
And of her body that rocked this way and that,
When I think of her laughter,
Her jubilance that filled me,
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You come to me quiet as rain not yet fallen
Afraid of how you might fail yourself your
dress seven summers old is kept open
in memory of sex, smells warm, of boys,
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I will give you a poem when you wake tomorrow.
It will be a peaceful poem.
It won’t make you sad.
It won’t make you miserable.
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Gust becos I cud not spel
It did not mean I was daft
When the boys in school red my riting
Some of them laffed
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When I got my finger stuck up my nose
I went to a doctor, who said,
"Nothing like this has happened before,
We will have to chop off your head."
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When I was a child I sat an exam.
This test was so simple
There was no way i could fail.
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And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then
You are not friends,
And friendship has passed.
And whole days are lost and among them
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'There's something new in the river,'
The fish said as it swam.
'It's got no scales, no fins and no gills,
And ignores the impassable dam.'
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I have changed the numbers on my watch,
And now perhaps something else will change.
Now perhaps
At precisely 2a.m.
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