by Thom Gunn
The love of old men is not worth a lot,
Desperate and dry even when it is hot.
You cannot tell what is enthusiasm
And what involuntary clawing spasm.
--
Thanks for that, Thom. Very moving.
So far my own 55th has involved being separated from some of my money by the racing results from Cheltenham and Newmarket but I've treated myself to a bottle of tequila, which might go better with orange than pomegranate juice and then we will see.
It is a date I share with Johnny Haynes, Fulham's maestro from the 1960's, Eminem- slightly less auspiciously- and, because I can barely write a paragraph without mentioning her at the moment, Rosemary Tonks. There were more than 23 people in our office today but none of them shared my birthday which just goes to prove how useful that statistic is.
But the day got off to a great, very early start, at about 2 a.m., when I switched over from some dull talk on Radio 5 to probably Radio 4 Extra and found Maggi Hambling talking about Rembrandt. Then I switched to Radio 3 just in time to hear Buxtehude's Membra Jesu nostri in a recording by Ton Koopman which I take to be from the due box set of Opera Omnia, the Complete Works, the price of which I'm waiting to find out with some trepidation. So it had been a good day before I even got up.
Is it really five years since I met Tim and Gillian and Victoria in Hampstead and went to Keats' house with Selina; or 15 since Fulham beat Bristol Rovers 1-0 during a varied weekend of discrete events with different people; or 37 since I bought my first trilby from Dunn & Co. in Gloucester or 44 since Dinglewell School won 1-0 away in Coventry and, in perhaps an unprecedented football phenomenon, all four of the forward line (from left to right) Kevin Andrews, Peter Wickenden, me and Simon Weston, claimed to have scored the goal. It was my birthday. The goal was credited to me. If you really want to know the full story, you will have to ask one day.
It is unlikely that today is going to be quite as memorable as any of those.
David Green
- David Green (Books) is the imprint under which I publish booklets of my own poems, or did. The 'Collected Poems' are now available as a pdf. The website is now what it has become. It keeps me out of more trouble than it gets me into. I hope you find at least some of it worthwhile.
