Guest Poem by Vuyelwa Carlin

Vuyelwa Carlin was born in South Africa and raised in Uganda ('The Pearl of Africa'), present in many of her poems. She have published five collections to date, most recently Long Shadows (Poetry Salzburg). A sixth, Holy Island, is now finished. This poem is from Acumen 110. (L.4 from a letter to Julian Symons; Ls. 8-9 from Nineteen Eighty-Four; L.14b paraphrased from Like It Was, Malcolm Muggeridge, Collins, 1981)

George Orwell Typing at his Desk – a Photo

Cigarette (always), reek of paraffin, the flinty
Jura house; those poor, rotting, blood-
leaking lungs: he pounds out, a year or so from death,

his last bleak book – I ballsed it up…so ill… he wrote
– that cracked, wheezy laugh. Stark bones,
a valley of bones, and stones: Winston Smith,

purpled with gin (but eyes, on a sudden,
full of tears – Under the spreading chestnut tree,
I sold you and you sold me
), runs, runs

in his mind’s eye, caught up in the barking
rabbling din. – Yet Orwell grasped
at happiness, his solid mischievous child; yearned –

death’s-head – after the pure cold mountains. He was buried,
awkward, noble mettle – poignant, that long coffin
in holy ground (an unexpected wish –

strings had to be pulled); severe, decent, lover
of old green rainy England; plain –
headstoned: Here lies Eric Blair; his dates; a red rosebush.