'When I go I go at your commands ... ' Photograph: PA
After war yesterday, today another poem on love, albeit of the most obdurate and jealous kind. This is one of Thom Gunn's best-known poems, and for good reason: the muscularity of its brief lines combines with his flinty, monosyllabic words and reductive rhyme-scheme to produce a memorable portrait of obsession. I particularly like the way Gunn shows the ambiguity of the relationship by playing with the idea of dominance, sending it shuttling back and forth between "catcher and caught" until it is difficult to know who owns whom. The rhythm is so compelling that I found a few years ago I had it by heart without ever having consciously learned it ...
Tamer and Hawk by Thom Gunn
I thought I was so tough, But gentled at your hands, Cannot be quick enough To fly for you and show That when I go I go At your commands.
Even in flight above I am no longer free: You seeled me with your love, I am blind to other birds? The habit of your words Has hooded me.
As formerly, I wheel I hover and I twist, But only want the feel, In my possessive thought, Of catcher and of caught Upon your wrist.
You but half civilize, Taming me in this way. Through having only eyes For you I fear to lose, I lose to keep, and choose Tamer as prey.
