Daily Poetry Readings #69: Done For! by Rosemary Tonks read by Dr Iain McGilchrist

Part 69 of a daily series of readings of his favourite poetry by Dr Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary. Today’s poem is Done For! by Rosemary Tonks

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~ Done For! by Rosemary Tonks ~

Take care whom you mix with in life, irresponsible one,
For if you mix with the wrong people
– and you yourself may be one of the wrong people –
If you make love to the wrong person.

In some old building with its fabric of dirt,
As clouds of witchcraft, nitro-glycerine, and cake,
Brush by (one autumn night) still green
From our green sunsets…and then let hundreds pass, unlit,

They will do you ferocious indelible harm!
Far beyond anything you can imagine, jazzy sneerin one,
And afterwards you’ll live in no man’s land,
You’ll lose your identity, and never get yourself back, diablotin,

It may have happened already, and as you read this…
Ah, it has happened already. I remember, in an old building;
Clouds which had cut themselves on a sharp winter sunset
(With its smoking stove of frosts to keep it cold) went by, bleeding.