There is an interview with Thom Gunn where he explained how once he had finished a book he couldn't start writing again and so he put a finished book in a drawer and continued writing and then published the book. Without wanting to suggest any further comparison between my writing, my frugal output and the methods of such a fine poet, I do know what he meant.The Perfect Murder was more or less finished about six months before it appeared but in the mean time I only wrote one poem and since it appeared I had lost the very slightest inclination to even think of a poem I might write. That isn't much below my usual state of affairs but, as it sometimes does, it almost felt terminal.
But I have just started reading a biography of Milton, with plenty of illustrations of eminent figures of his time, and it was a matter of course that I glanced at two of these on facing pages and thought, 'cavaliers' and immediately a new poem was in progress. In fact it was begun at 4.30 a.m. today and finished with some thesaurus and Google Images checking not very many minutes ago. This is not the famous Laughing Cavalier I'm talking about. He seems to be an aberration. I have in mind this sort of cavalier and if anybody ever thinks there is no political edge to any of my poems then if you bear in mind Cameron, Osborne and their friends then you may think otherwise.
Cavalier
They took care to preserve themselves in oils
and now look past you with macabre disdain
for it’s clear that you are not invited
to their custom of license and excess.
At this distance you can only admire
their coiffure, debonair sang froid and scorn.
But this, then, was the last word in fashion,
expensive only for expensive’s sake.
You understand what it tacitly means
-it’s you that looks at them, not them at you-
the least part of their delinquent manner
and as loyal as loyalty requires
with menace in the grimace they disguise
as merely highfalutin, fine good taste.
Such rigid dignity is libertine
and lost upon us now who, less impressed,
could have been their offspring for all we know,
and there, but for the grace of God, we go.
