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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Carol Rumens

Poem of the week: Nocturnal by Paul Bailey

Bed with breakfast tray on it<
‘One of those perfect mornings / that always follows / a night of rapture.’ Photograph: David Harrigan/Getty Images/Uppercut RF

Nocturnal

I knew a man once who wished he hadn’t been born.
He meant what he said.
He wasn’t a poseur.
In the few, radiant years I knew him
He never spoke for effect.

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