Collected Love Poems

The future stretched no further than
The pillow upon which your head was resting

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2001 was honoured with the Freedom of the City of Liverpool.

BRIAN PATTEN is one of Britain’s best known poets.

Poem Written in the Street on a Rainy Evening

Was there a witness?

It asks questions of me
So simple they can hardly be answered.
When did you last weep?

Night and then again night,

Night and then again night,

Harbouring loneliness,
Cancelling the doubts

How inside them all
Terror is waiting.