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William Dean
Thom Gunn
"There will be no turn of the river," he wrote,
there's more, but any quote
will do as well, long or brief
to bring relief.
You see, another voice is stilled,
another poet killed,
another man - a man of words - is taken;
is your world shaken?
Mine is, though I never knew the fellow.
Some said he used to bellow
and then mellow
into the softest "Hello";
What's that? Don't we all?
His mother took her life, a wall
no doubt she gave her son;
so many do, as one by one,
We lose the one who gave us birth
and, by that loss, a slice of mirth
and joy is sheared from life.
Thom Gunn left no wife.
He lived in London's old town,
Jack, that is; the one earthquakes tear down
from time to time,
in California's sunny clime
where settle strange men of rhyme
in the sea-crusted, salty rime
where tears and seas and verses run
and men love men when all is done.
Another voice is stilled somehow
"There will be no turn in the river" now.
Thom Gunn, a transplanted British poet identified with the San Francisco
scene and the California liberated style, died on April 18th, 2004, at the
age of 74. His death was announced by his companion of 52 years, Mike
Kitay. He wedded traditional form to unorthodox themes, like LSD,
panhandling, and homosexuality. He experimented with free verse and syllabic
stanzas.
Read an obituary for Thom Gunn here.
©2004 by William Dean
William Dean is Associate Editor for Clean Sheets Magazine and a
monthly columnist for the Erotica Readers & Writers Association. His fiction
and non-fiction appear on several online sites and anthologies, including
From Porn to Poetry 1 & 2, Desires, and the forthcoming Love Under Foot.
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