George Szirtes
George Szirtes was born in Budapest in 1948 and came
to England as a refugee in 1956. Trained as an artist,
he has published some dozen books of poetry, the first
of which The Slant Door won the Faber Prize.
OUP published his Selected Poems in 1996.
His most recent book, Reel (Bloodaxe,
2004) was awarded the T S Eliot Prize. His
New and Collected Poems appear in November
2008 along with John Sears’s study of his work, Reading
George Szirtes.
Author photo © Caroline Forbes
However
However you do it, it’s done. The wind
rustles the dress. The rain blurs
the face. The morning occurs
in the usual fashion.
However you think, it is thought. The mind
runs on chasing its hare-
brained schemes and the air
continues in motion.
However you hide you are found. The bomb
at the roadside explodes
when it’s due to. The secret codes
offer no protection.
However you smile the lips purse. The frown
hovers beside you. It’s late,
and the night tells delicate
lies, its stars pure fiction.
Outside
Outside, the tenderest of rains. We guess
whether it is planets, eons, moments or atoms
falling, making that faint noise;
time in its latest soaked-through dress
or a vanishing so vast, no bombs
remain, no blackened limbs, no bruise?
How beautiful! The cry at the edge of things.
And there, at the very edge, some stand,
of laughter, of tears, of wonder, of each other.
The heart fails, the word sings,
and all things break at the touch of a hand
that touches another, some holding together.
© 2008
Salt Publishing Limited 
