Wednesday, 20 July 2005
Love Again
Love again: wanking at ten past three
(Surely he's taken her home by now?),
The bedroom hot as a bakery,
The drink gone dead, without showing how
To meet tomorrow, and afterwards,
And the usual pain, like dysentery.
Someone else feeling her breasts and cunt,
Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare,
And me supposed to be ignorant,
Or find it funny, or not to care,
Even ... but why put it into words?
Isolate rather this element
That spreads through other lives like a tree
And sways them on in a sort of sense
And say why it never worked for me.
Something to do with violence
A long way back, and wrong rewards,
And arrogant eternity.
Philip Larkin
10:58 Permalink | Comments (7) | Email this | Tags: Poetry
Comments
Larkin is, without a shadow of a doubt, my favourite poet - I've done well to hold off until now. This poem is possibly his most optimistic work.
Carol Ann Duffy on Philip Larkin: "As anyone who has the slightest knowledge of my work knows, I have little in common with Larkin, who was a tall, taciturn and thin-on-top, and unlike him I laugh, nay, sneer, in the face of death. I will concede one point; we are both lesbian poets."
Posted by: waylaid | Wednesday, 20 July 2005
Love that poem. I also like 'Sunny Prestatyn', which somehow, I almost know by heart. Possibly because I think of it every time I go to a British seaside resort.
Oh, my blog address is above...
Posted by: Scarlett | Thursday, 21 July 2005
It must be that prosaic/poetic thing Larkin does, but he seems quite easy to memorise - somehow I know "This be the verse" off by heart and quite a lot of "When first we faced" and quite a lot of this one.
But I never read Sunny Prestatyn – so here it is. Also, for those of you who aren't Scarlett, click on Scarlett's name and check out her blog (I'll do a link tomorrow), she's got a million different names for a ladies front bottom. Oh-er! So naughty!
Sunny Prestatyn
Come to Sunny Prestatyn
Laughed the girl on the poster,
Kneeling up on the sand
In tautened white satin.
Behind her, a hunk of coast, a
Hotel with palms
Seemed to expand from her thighs and
Spread breast-lifting arms.
She was slapped up one day in March.
A couple of weeks, and her face
Was snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed;
Huge tits and a fissured crotch
Were scored well in, and the space
Between her legs held scrawls
That set her fairly astride
A tuberous cock and balls
Autographed Titch Thomas, while
Someone had used a knife
Or something to stab right through
The moustached lips of her smile.
She was too good for this life.
Very soon, a great transverse tear
Left only a hand and some blue.
Now Fight Cancer is there.
Posted by: waylaid | Thursday, 21 July 2005
On the subject of "This be the verse", I must post you this marvellous parody of Larkin's poem, by Adrian Mitchell, who was inspired to write it after hearing that some innocent had mis-heard the title of Larkin's poem.
This be the Worst
They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.
They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.
Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.
Posted by: Scarlett | Friday, 22 July 2005
I love it.
Posted by: waylaid | Tuesday, 26 July 2005
i felt this way yesterday .....
Posted by: -- lifebytes | Saturday, 30 July 2005
wow. that's good.
Posted by: Chris | Tuesday, 30 August 2005
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