Don’t feel sorry about it, if you remember

blue Darlinghurst nights like particular quilts

a generation of painters saw

before we arrived there, or found ourselves

deciduous as apple trees. Don’t feel sorry

for our poverty, or I’ll report the mirror winks

like a man with bad teeth who has laughed

at all who dislike poetry. Be less than sad

on the day that you hear the news I fell,

they’ll nose you out, the generous, curious ones

then rest assured that I will never tell

who left her pee in glasses overnight.

Don’t be sorry so much ambitious verse

grovelled in the cities where we lived

only say for me I walked an older road

where poetry was rare and hard, and, frankly, good.

That when I had worked it out I laughed and laughed;

what piss-ants, what grovelling pick-thanks

queued like the British to attack my books.

See with what ease I bash the rhythms out,

(go fall on it!) set the metaphor to click

on their tumblers into place. The reason is

I’ve served my bloody indentures: no use

getting set for sad atmospheres. You’ll hear

of my death one day and start to remember

how many times I got you to laugh

from the verbal castles I built you.

Robert Harris