'Broadcast' by Philip Larkin
Giant whispering and coughing from
Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces
Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum
'The Queen', and a huge resettling. Then begins
A snivel on the violins:
I think of your face among all those faces,
Beautiful and devout before
Cascades of monumental slithering,
One of your gloves unnoticed on the floor
Beside those new, slightly-outmoded shoes.
Here it goes quickly dark. I lose
All but the outline of the still and withering
Leaves on half-emptied trees. Behind
The glowing wavebands, rabid storms of chording
By being distant overpower my mine
All the more shamelessly, their cut-off shout
Leaving me desperate to pick out
Your hands, tiny in all that air, applauding.
Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces
Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum
'The Queen', and a huge resettling. Then begins
A snivel on the violins:
I think of your face among all those faces,
Beautiful and devout before
Cascades of monumental slithering,
One of your gloves unnoticed on the floor
Beside those new, slightly-outmoded shoes.
Here it goes quickly dark. I lose
All but the outline of the still and withering
Leaves on half-emptied trees. Behind
The glowing wavebands, rabid storms of chording
By being distant overpower my mine
All the more shamelessly, their cut-off shout
Leaving me desperate to pick out
Your hands, tiny in all that air, applauding.