Take a stroll around Belgravia or Regent’s Park, and you’ll notice that many of the multimillion-dollar dwellings stand unoccupied, their blinds drawn. Here is a safe deposit box for some tycoon in a turbulent industry; there is an insurance policy for a corrupt minister of mines. London is the capital of pristine facades, often painted in wedding-cake shades of cream or ivory; the city’s dominant aesthetic is literally whitewash.
Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker, February 24
A glorious word portrait.
Extract from Time Heals by Peter Hamill.Thinking back, it seems as if I can lie beside you as I never truly did — in afterglow. No afterwards at all. Only writing love songs when it’s gone and dead. Only paying out words in strings of half forgotten sentiments.
I mean…
I meant…
I never realy quite could say the way it was.
This is a walk down memory lane to my lovelorn youth, when this type of poetry was ambrosia to the languishing young lover trying to make sense of a broken heart. Even from the perspective a many more years and deeper understanding, it still moves me.
francesmanwaring.com 