by Clive James
Dancing Master 522
Deckard Was a Replicant 129
Diamond Pens of the Bus Vandals 235
Double or Quits 287
Drama in the Soviet Union 90
Dream Me Some Happiness 127
Dreams Before Sleeping 350
Driftwood Houses 391
Driving through Mythical America 476
Early to Bed 394
Echo Echo Echo 53
Echo Point 408
Edward Estlin Cummings Dead 157
Egon Friedell’s Heroic Death 47
Elementary Sonnet 428
Event Horizon 403
Exit Don Giovanni 210
Fashion Statement 342
Femme Fatale 519
Fires Burning, Fires Burning 269
Flashback on Fast Forward 151
Four Poems about Porpoises 8
Frangipani Was Her Flower 471
Fridge Magnet Sonnets 97
From Robert Lowell’s Notebook 153
Funnelweb 59
Ghost Train to Australia 278
Go Back to the Opal Sunset 99
Grace Cossington Smith’s Harbour Bridge 241
Grief Has Its Time 380
Habitués 369
Hard-Core Orthography 150
Have You Got a Biro I Can Borrow? 485
History and Geography 517
Holding Court 396
Homage to Rafinesque 49
I Feel Like Midnight 509
I Have to Learn to Live Alone Again 524
I See the Joker 451
In Praise of Marjorie Jackson 114
In Town for the March 140
Incident in the Gandhi Bookshop Café, Avenida Corrientes 352
Iron Horse 239
Japanese Maple 436
Jesus in Nigeria 146
Jet Lag in Tokyo 75
Johnny Weissmuller Dead in Acapulco 39
Lament for French Deal 101
Landfall 392
Language Lessons 329
Last Night the Sea Dreamed It Was Greta Scacchi 88
Laughing Boy 486
Le Cirque Imaginaire at Riverside Studios 22
Leçons de ténèbres 429
Les Saw It First 280
Literary Lunch 251
Living Doll 402
Lock Me Away 247
Lucretius the Diver 131
Madagascar Full-Tilt Boogie 374
Managing Anger 406
Manly Ferry 399
Meteor IV at Cowes, 1913 300
Monja Blanca 309
Museum of the Unmoving Image 229
My Brother’s Keeper 516
My Egoist 454
My Father Before Me 212
My Home 395
My Latest Fever 410
Mysterious Arrival of the Dew 432
Mystery of the Silver Chair 226
Naomi from Namibia 274
National Steel 450
Natural Selection 221
Nature Programme 405
Nefertiti in the Flak Tower 319
Neither One Thing Nor the Other 21
Nimrod 340
Nina Kogan’s Geometrical Heaven 421
No Dice 474
Nothing Left to Say 449
Numismatics 318
Occupation: Housewife 143
On A Thin Gold Chain 324
On Reading Hakluyt at High Altitude 346
One Man to Another 133
Only Divine 244
Only the Immortal Need Apply 416
Oval Room, Wallace Collection 315
Overview 288
Paper Flower Maiden 345
Payday Evening 460
Pennies for the Shark 336
Perfect Moments 497
Plate Tectonics 385
Plot Points 417
Portrait of Man Writing 296
Practical Man 479
Press Release from Plato 259
Private Prayer at Yasukuni Shrine 272
Procedure for Disposal 398
Publisher’s Party 249
R. S. Thomas at Altitude 155
Ramifications of Pure Beauty 260
Ready for the Road 510
Reflections in an Extended Kitchen 112
Reflections on a Cardboard Box 42
Return of the Lost City 283
Richard Wilbur’s Fabergé Egg Factory 159
Rounded with a Sleep 426
Sack Artist 29
Screen-freak 462
Search and Destroy 502
Secret Drinker 500
Senior Citizens 456
Sentenced to Life 389
Sessionman’s Blues 453
Shadow and the Widower 458
Signed by the Artist 282
Signing Ceremony 307
Silent Sky 332
Simple Stanzas about Modern Masters 118
Six Degrees of Separation from Shelley 142
Son of a Soldier 120
Song for Rita 455
Special Needs 334
Spectre of the Rose 321
Spring Snow Dancer 431
Stage Door Rocket Science 311
Star System 423
State Funeral 264
Statement from the Secretary of Defense 231
Status Quo Vadis 298
Stolen Children 135
Stranger in Town 448
Sunday Morning Walk 219
Sunlight Gate 488
Sunset Hails a Rising 439
Symptoms of Self-Regard 158
Tempe Dump 401
Tenderfoot 503
The Anchor of the Sirius 55
The Artificial Horizon 81
The Australian Suicide Bomber’s Heavenly Reward 233
The Banishment 10
The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered 27
The Buzz 349
The Carnival 302
The Crying Need for Snow 12
The Deep Six 4
The Double Agent 464
The Emperor’s Last Words 412
The Eternity Man 108
The Eye of the Universe 514
The Faded Mansion on the Hill 489
The Falcon Growing Old 354
The Ferry Token 58
The Genesis Wafers 228
The Glass Museum 14
The Great Wrasse: for Les Murray at sixty 193
The Hollow and the Fluted Night 499
The Hypertension Kid 495
The Ice-cream Man 446
The Lady in Mourning at Camelot 7
The Later Yeats 365
The Light As It Grows Dark 383
The Light Well 77
The Lions at Taronga 125
The Magic Wheel 294
The Master of the Revels 445
The Morning from Cremorne, Sydney Harbour 6
The North Window 165
The Nymph Calypso 290
The Outgoing Administration 20
The Philosophical Phallus 44
The Place of Reeds 148
The Rider to the World’s End 472
The Road of Silk 498
The Same River Twice 323
The Serpent Beguiled Me 262
The Shadow Knows 379
The Supreme Farewell of Handkerchiefs 33
The Victor Hugo Clematis 224
The Young Australian Rider, P. G. Burman 16
The Zero Pilot 237
Thief in the Night 478
Thirty-year Man 491
This Is No Drill 267
Thoughts on Feeling Carbon-Dated 38
To Craig Raine: a letter from Biarritz 183
To Gore Vidal at Fifty 190
To Leonie Kramer, Chancellor of Sydney University: A Report
on My Discipline, on the Eve of My Receiving an Honorary
Degree, 1999 198
To Martin Amis: a letter from Indianapolis 169
To Tom Stoppard: a letter from London 178
Too Much Light 409
Touch Has a Memory 470
Transit Visa 434
Under the Jacarandas 223
Urban Guerrilla 513
Vertical Envelopment 356
Vision of Jean Arthur and the Distant Mountains 382
We Being Ghosts 303
What About You? Asks Kingsley Amis 164
What Happened to Auden 83
When We Were Kids 242
Where the Sea Meets the Desert 123
Whitman and the Moth 363
Will Those Responsible Come Forward? 50
William Dobell’s Cypriot 276
Windows Is Shutting Down 207
Winter Plums 430
Winter Spring 525
Woman Resting 216
Young Lady in Black 138
Yusra 270
Index of First Lines
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
A belt with a bull’s head for a buckle 510
A guitar is a thief in the night 478
A lifetime onward, I know now the bubbler 376
A standard day’s haul from the burial mound: 377
Advertisements asked ‘Which twin has the Toni?’ 143
Allow me to present myself, my ladies 445
Always the Gods learned more from humankind 244
An army that never leaves its defences 412
An Aufstehpuppe is a stand-up guy. 402
An object lesson in the speed of silence, 288
An Oka kamikaze rocket bomb 272
And still his dreaming eyes are full of sails 498
Another black-tie invitation comes: 254
Antony and Cleopatra swam at Mersa Matruh 123
Apart possibly from waving hello to the cliff-divers 39
As any good poem is always ending, 298
As I see you 3
As if God’s glory, with just one sun-ray, 226
As the world goes past me 522
As we left each other on our final night 458
At noon, no shadow. I am on my knees 212
Automatic weapons rake the roof 513
Be careful when they offer you the moon 469
Because the leaves relaxing on the water 4
Before the tournament began 7
Beside the uniquely hideous GLC building 341
Beyond the border town they call Contrition 503
Bigger than a man, the wedding tackle 248
Blemishes age 10
Bring me the sweat of Gabriela Sabatini 93
But are they lessons, all these things I learn 429
Changes in temperature entail turmoil. 53
Cottonmouth had such a way of saying things 481
Created purely for the court’s delight, 315
Dear Craig, I’ve brought your books down to the sea 183
Dear Mart, I write you from a magic spot. 169
Delayed until the sacred ship got back 259
Dying by inches, I can hear the sound 439
Egon Friedell committed suicide 47
Facing the wind, the hovering stormy petrels 317
Famous for overcoming obstacles 264
Flat feet kept Einstein out of the army. 75
Flowering cherry pales to brush-stroke pink at blossom fall 92
Following Eve, you look for apple cores 262
For years we fooled ourselves. Now we can tell 403
Four students in the usual light of day 477
Frangipani was her flower 471
From Playa de Girón the two-lane blacktop 77
From where I sit for cool drinks in the heat 135
Frost on the green. 219
Furiously sleep; ideas green; colourless 19
Gasnier had soft hands that the ball stuck to 252
Genesis carried wafers in her hold 228
Go back to the opal sunset, where the wine 99
God bless the nurses of the Sacred Heart 101
Grace Cossington Smith, Grace Cossington Smith, 241
Grasping at straws, I bless another day 395
“Grief has its time,” said Johnson, well aware 380
Grown old, you long still for what young love does. 349
Hard to believe, now, that I once was free 392
Have you got a biro I can borrow? 485
Having grown old enough to see the trellis buckle 338
He had not thought that it would be his task 434
He worked setting tools for a multi-purpose punch 493
Here I am, complaining as usual to Nicole Kidman 233
High in the stratosphere, I speed toward 346
His stunning first lines burst out of the page 83
Home early from a meeting of the reps 511
Hostathion contains Triazophos, 42
How far was Plato free of that ‘inflamed 283
How many angels knew who Hamlet was 208
I always thought the showdown would be sudden, 401
I am the echo of the man you knew. 408
I feel like midnight 509
I have been where time runs into time 514
I have to learn 524
I live in the shadow of a hill 520
I never will remember how that stranger came to town 448
I ribald sophist, you deft paragon, 97
I saw him when distaste had turned to nightmare 160
I see it now, the truth of what we were 342
I swam across the creek at Inverell. 280
I tried hard to be useful, but no dice 474
I won’t this time. Silent at last and shunted 278
I’m glad to say we’re mopping up up here 502
I’ve come to think 506
I’ve got the sessionman’s blues 453
‘I’ve left that great page blank,’ said Mallarmé 33
If Occam’s Razor gleams in Massachusetts 159
If T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound 118
If there was one thing Egyptian Queens were used to 319
In ‘The Phantom of the Clouds’ Apollinaire 22
In 1999, the year before the Sydney Olympics, 114
In all the rooms I’ve hung my hat, in all the towns I’ve been 486
In cabinets no longer clear, each master’s exhibit 14
In Havana, at the Hotel Nacional, 414
In our garden, the Victor Hugo clematis 224
In Paris, at Diaghilev’s Cleopatra – 416
In porno-speak, reversion to the Latin 150
In the Brisbane Botanical Gardens, 274
In the clear light of a cloudy summer morning 334
In the early evening, before I go on in Taunton, 311
In the Great Rift, the wildebeest wheel and run, 385
In the last year of her life I dined with Diana Cooper 142
In the NHS psychiatric test 247
Installed in my last house, I face the thought 425
It isn’t fear I feel, or lack of nerve 519
It may not come to this, but if I should 398
It’s cold without the softness of a fall 12
John Donne, uneasiest of apostates, 127
Kogarah (suppress the first ‘a’ and it scans) 148
Last night I drank with a practical man 479
Last night I met the Hypertension Kid 495
Last night the sea dreamed it was Greta Scacchi. 88
Late summer charms the birds out of the trees 112
Let him so keen for casting the first stone 146
Look back and you can almost pick the minute 382
Mask wet and snorkel dry, I’m lying loose 193
May the Lord have mercy on all those peoples 51
Merely a planchet waiting to be struck, 318
More valuable than all of mine, your book 360
Mornings now I breakfast in the tower 451
My brother lives in fear 516
My cataracts invest the bright spring day 409
My latest fever clad me in cold sweat 410
My niece is heading here to stay with us. 433
My tears came late. I was fifty-five years old 120
Neat name for the machine 327
Never filmed, he was photographed only once, 108
No moons are left to see the other side of. 38
Nobody here yet 491
Not gold but some base alloy, it stays good 58
O magic wheel, draw hither to my house the man I love. 294
Of late I try to kill my payday evenings 460
Old age is not my problem. Bad health, yes. 394
Old as the hills and riddled with ill health, 437
On screen, the actor smashes down the phone. 406
On the Hiryu, Hajime Toyoshima 237
On the midsummer fairground alive with the sound 482
On the rafting ice 417
Only when we are under different skies 287
Opals have storms in them, the legend goes: 324
Out on my singing teacher’s patio 267
Over Hamburg 269
Passing the line-up of the narrow-boats 260
Perching high like an old-time man of law 500
Perfect moments have a clean design 497
Philip Burman bought an old five hundred 16
Planning to leave Calypso in the lurch, 290
Recite your lines aloud, Ronsard advised, 312
Reciting poetry by those you prize – 251
Reeling between the redhead and the blonde 29
Retreating from the world, all I can do 396
Salute me! I have tamed my daughter’s face 133
Scanning the face of a crestfallen wave 326
Screwed up in every sense, she occupied 345
See how the shadow of my former self 379
Sentenced to life, I sleep face-up as though 389
She knew the last words of Eurydice 329
Shining in the window a guitar that wasn’t wood 450
Snow into April. Frost night after night. 431
Some marched, some sailed, some flew to join the war, 340
Some older people like the ship so much 369
Someone sets it 6
Sometimes I think perhaps I’m just obtuse. 21
Sometimes the merely gifted give us proof 216
Somewhere below his pride, the Don’s bad dreams 210
Stalled before my metal shaving mirror 153
Surely you see now that you gave your name 323
Swallows in leotards 8
Sydney in Spring. Tonight you dine alone. 300
Taking the piss out of my catheter, 356
Taronga Park Aquarium once had, 336
Tell me about the dew. Some say it falls 432
The artificial horizon is no false dawn 81
The book of my enemy has been remaindered 27
The breakers from the sea that kept me sane 449
The brief is to report on what’s been done – 198
The canvas, called A Morning Long Ago, 214
The Cypriot brought his wine-dark eyes with him 276
The day of her release, Suu Kyi wound flowers 373
The falcon wears its erudition lightly 354
