Funeral Blues

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden

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Years and years of mandatory reading of poetry in school didn't cut it.
Years and years of trying to be erudite and trying to get a poem at first glance didn't cut it.
But then watching the movie "four weddings and a funeral" and the above poem being rendered, finally cut it. Funeral blues has simply got to be my favourite poem.

Funeral blues has a spontaineity and an urgency to it. I love the way the words used are commonplace, everyday and yet even the introduction of "telephones" and "aeroplanes" and other such arguably non romantic implements does not in the least bit suppress its beauty. Its harsh, its instant, there's a roughness to it, a determination to say the first thing that comes to one's mind, immediatly. I love the way the poet seems to have given up on everything. Pack up the moon he says, dismantle the sun he says. Just leave me "bloody" alone, he seems to be yelling.

The reason i love this poem is not because i have gone through anything similar, but because it tells me that i needn't be a great poet, or know loads of words, or anything at all about what is and what is not accepted in poetry. All i need is a deep rooted love and an urge to moan, and words will flow automatically. After all, the magnitude of my emotion is not in any way related to my vocabulary, and perhaps my ability to express a feeling is just dependant on the feeling alone and not how many words i know or my knowledge of poetic meter.

What i love about funeral blues is how commonplace it feels. How every word fits just so. A mourner is not looking to decorate his words. Its almost as if he still believe that his loved one is around, and will hear him, if only he speaks fast and quick and there's no time to think - only time to feel, and perhaps not even time to heal.