If hands could free you, heart, by Philip Larkin

Francis Poulenc - Improvisations No. 7 in C major
with Pascal Rogé

If hands could free you, heart,
...Where would you fly?
Far, beyond every part
Of earth this running sky
Makes desolate? Would you cross
City and hill and sea,
...If hands could set you free?

I would not lift the latch;
...For I could run
Through fields, pit-valleys, catch
All beauty under the sun--
Still end in loss:
I should find no bent arm, no bed
...To rest my head.


thank you Roxana for the poem
thank you vv for the music

Wants, by Philip Larkin

György Ligeti - Atmosphères

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards
However we follow the printed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the flagstaff -
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,
The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,
The costly aversion of the eyes from death -
Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.


from 20th Century Poetry & Poetics (Oxford University Press, 1969)