Lawrence’s keyword in his scandalous novel
Wasn’t fuck, or cunt, or anything else
A censorious public imagined
Outragedly twittering over their Darjeeling
Or fumbling a grubby well-thumbed copy behind the bike-sheds.
His revolutionary word that dissolved the pretensions of class
Was the the purposeless human touch of inarticulate tenderness.
More than the much-gossiped rustling among mud and leaves
The urge also silkenly sartorial Forster’s to only connect
To heal and save, alive in the moment.
In hospitals in Gaza
No leafy canopy protects.
Burning children’s limbs scatter in self defence
And bulldozers prepare tabula rasa.
When evil connects evil, human tenderness is disconnected
And victim selves are mere pretence.
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Stephen Linstead
Painting: Egon Shiele
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