Clive James’ Recent Poems

I’m always touched by Clive James’ essays, and his many books and poems. He’s a writer to read for a broad perspective on our world. Recently, his illness has forced him to concentrate more on his poetry. His latest work is a summing up, marked by thoughts of deep regret and death. The regret is the most tragic kind, involving affairs of the heart and the ending of close relationships. This is the last stanza of a recent, long poem, Rounded With A Sleep, which you can read here.

“All day tomorrow I have tests and scans/ And everything that happens will be real. / My blood might say I should make no more plans, / And when it does so, that will be the deal. /  But until then I love to speak with you / Each day we meet. / Sometimes we even touch / Across the sad gulf that I brought us to. / Just for a time, so little means so much: / More than I’m worth, I know, as I know how / My death is something I must live with now.”