I Am No Good at Love

I Am No Good at Love

By Noël Coward

 

I am no good at love

My heart should be wise and free

I kill the unfortunate golden goose

Whoever it may be

With over-articulate tenderness

And too much intensity.

 

I am no good at love

I batter it out of shape

Suspicion tears at my sleepless mind

And, gibbering like an ape,

I lie alone in the endless dark

Knowing there's no escape.

 

I am no good at love

When my easy heart I yield

Wild words come tumbling from my mouth

Which should have stayed concealed;

And my jealousy turns a bed of bliss

Into a battlefield.

 

I am no good at love

I betray it with little sins

For I feel the misery of the end

In the moment that it begins

And the bitterness of the last good-bye

Is the bitterness that wins.

 

 

Noël Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer. What some might not realize is that he was also a poet. He was known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise.”

 

Coward was gay, but following the convention of his times, this was never publicly mentioned. Coward firmly believed his private business was not for public discussion, considering "any sexual activities when over-advertised" to be tasteless. Even in the 1960s, Coward refused to acknowledge his sexual orientation publicly, wryly observing, "There are still a few old ladies in Worthing who don't know." Despite this reticence, he encouraged his secretary Cole Lesley to write a frank biography once Coward was safely dead.

 

Coward's most important relationship, which began in the mid-1940s and lasted until his death, was with the South African stage and film actor Graham Payn. Coward featured Payn in several of his London productions. Payn later co-edited with Sheridan Morley a collection of Coward's diaries, published in 1982. Coward's other relationships included the playwright Keith Winter, actors Louis Hayward and Alan Webb, his manager Jack Wilson and the composer Ned Rorem, who published details of their relationship in his diaries. Coward had a 19-year friendship with Prince George, Duke of Kent, but biographers differ on whether it was platonic. Payn believed that it was, although Coward reportedly admitted to the historian Michael Thornton that there had been "a little dalliance.” Coward said, on the duke's death, "I suddenly find that I loved him more than I knew."