If you were hoping to come here today and find it free of romance, I'd afraid I'm going to have to disappoint. My love of poetry has got me bad, and I ain't afraid to show it.

      So, even if no-one's sent you flowers today, or no-one's kissed you yet (or ever); even if tonight will be spent alone with some soup or giggling raucously with friends, pitying everyone else; even if you're going out tonight and are not really sure you want to be; 
read this poem and *sigh*

'Love's time's beggar, but even a single hour,
bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
or wine, but on the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.
For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair
like treasure on the ground; the Midas light
turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here
we are millionaires, backhanding the night

so nothing dark will end our shining hour,
no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit
hung from the blade of grass at your ear,
no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit

but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.


Carol Ann Duffy, 2005.


  1. That was truly lovely, thank you x

  2. Absolutely; it was a toss-up between this and 'You'.

    Maybe I'll save that for next year...unless you have another favourite to big up from the collection? :)

  3. I looooove 'Tea' =)

  4. Aaw, yeah, that's a classic - we've actually got it on our wall at home. Jess V-S also has it written in full on her facebook page!

    How's goes the wider poetry search that you were embarking on a while ago? Find anything else that you liked?


Thanks for commenting! Best bit of blogging, by far.

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