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.