Tuesday Poem: "Comeclose and Sleepnow" by Roger McGough

it is afterwards
and you talk on tiptoe
happy to be part
of the darkness
lips becoming limp
a prelude to tiredness.
Comeclose and Sleepnow
for in the morning
when a policeman
disguised as the sun
creeps into your room
and your mother
disguised as birds
calls from the trees
you will put on a dress of guilt
and shoes with broken high ideals
and refusing coffee
run
alltheway
home.

     

by Roger McGough


Sam Hunt, Leonard Cohen and Roger McGough were three poets that really spoke to me when I was a teenager. They all employed humour in their work, each in his own quirky, inimitable way. And they were all poets who focused on the realities of life, its ups and downs, its sorrows and joys and its absurdity at times. Leonard Cohen has a reputation (unfairly, I feel) as a doom and gloom merchant, but often his poems were shot through with a wry smile or perhaps a stab of black humour.

But Roger McGough was probably the funniest of the three and also often the tenderest though Sam and Leonard also had their tender poems.

For more about the international treasure that is Roger McGough see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_McGough

And don't forget to check out all the wonderful poets on the blog roll at:

www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com