DOUGLAS LIVINGSTONE REVISITED

This evening’s programme at Mondays at Six at St.Clements is titled Douglas Livingstone Revisited and features readings from A Rosary Of Bone, Livingstone’s collection of love poems.

Quotations on the title page of A Rosary Of Bone include:

‘Enjoy life with a woman you love all the days of your allotted span
here under the sun, empty as they are; for that is your lot while you
live and labour here under the sun.’ – Eccles. ix 9 (New English Bible).

‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is
no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither
thou goest.’ – Eccles. ix. 10 (King James version).

And this is one of Livingstone’s most beautiful pieces of poetry - Steel Giraffes:

There are, probably, somewhere
arms as petal-slight as hers;
there are probably somewhere,
wrists as slim;
quite probably, someone has
hands as slender-leafed as hers;
the fingers, probably
bare of rings, as thin.

Certainly, there is nowhere
such a dolour
of funnels, mastings, yards,
filaments of dusk ringing shrouds
woven through the word goodbye,
riveted steel giraffes
tactfully looking elsewhere,
necks very still to the sky.

Douglas Livingstone Revisited takes place this evening (May 14) at 17h30 for 18h00.

St Clements is situated at 191 Musgrave Road on the right-hand side a short way down Musgrave after the St Thomas Road intersection. Mondays at Six run between 18h00 and 19h00. Booking is advised on 031 202 2511. There is no cover charge but there is a donations box to support presenters.