Contemporary Poets: 13 Hugo Williams
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Your support makes all the difference.Hugo Williams made his name with youthful, Thom Gunnish poems about travel, identity and desire - and an alter ego called Sonny Jim. He came into his own with the collections Love-Life (1979), plain-seeming love poems edged with surrealism, and then Writing Home (1985), a moving series of poems about his actor-father. Now 50, he continues to explore aspects of the divided self.
MUTTERED LINES
God give me strength to lead a double life.
Cut me in half.
Make each half happy in its own way
with what is left. Let me disobey
my own best instincts
and do what I want to do, whatever that may be,
without regretting it, or thinking I might.
When I come home late at night from home,
saying I have to go away,
remind me to look out the window
to see which house I'm in.
Pin a smile on my face
when I turn up two weeks later with a tan
and presents for everyone.
Teach me how to stand and where to look
when I say the words
about where I've been
and what sort of time I've had.
Was it good or bad or somewhere in between?
I'd like to know how I feel about these things,
perhaps you'd let me know?
When it's time to go to bed in one of my lives,
go ahead of me up the stairs,
shine a light in the corners of my room.
Tell me this: do I wear pyjamas here,
or sleep with nothing on?
If you can't oblige by cutting me in half,
God give me strength to lead a double life.
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