deepundergroundpoetry.com
A Lark
on the centenary of Philip Larkin's birth,
August 9th, 1922
Cannot scan as well, of course.
The dude in glasses better than that,
as always as in other things,
would note that even this is poor.
But when you've both let down your share
of boys and girls and other meats,
and been a bastard of a gent,
you feel as if you know a chap.
And even if my poem's crap,
the store unkept and left bereft
of Whitsun's wedding bells,
deceptions leave a window cleft.
And in that window age looks out,
bespectacled and sheer,
a knitted coat and charcoal tie.
(To me, always, in black-and-white.)
The loneliness and bastardy
are what I learned at Larkin's Knee.
A bright but sneering balladry
that of a sort is heraldry.
August 9th, 1922
Cannot scan as well, of course.
The dude in glasses better than that,
as always as in other things,
would note that even this is poor.
But when you've both let down your share
of boys and girls and other meats,
and been a bastard of a gent,
you feel as if you know a chap.
And even if my poem's crap,
the store unkept and left bereft
of Whitsun's wedding bells,
deceptions leave a window cleft.
And in that window age looks out,
bespectacled and sheer,
a knitted coat and charcoal tie.
(To me, always, in black-and-white.)
The loneliness and bastardy
are what I learned at Larkin's Knee.
A bright but sneering balladry
that of a sort is heraldry.
Published 6th Aug 2022
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6th Aug 2022 12:14pm
Much respect for the eulogy/celebration. Think you have succinctly touched the edges of the man, the melancholy poet and “that lifted rough-tongued bell” of his art.
I had Larkin inscribed on my Mum & Dad’s grave stone: “What will survive of us is love.” Don’t think they would have thought much of him as a person, but guess they have all eternity to contemplate his wondrous word-scapes.
I had Larkin inscribed on my Mum & Dad’s grave stone: “What will survive of us is love.” Don’t think they would have thought much of him as a person, but guess they have all eternity to contemplate his wondrous word-scapes.
6th Aug 2022 1:53pm
“In everyone there sleeps
A sense of life lived according to love.
To some it means the difference they could make
By loving others, but across most it sweeps
As all they might have done had they been loved.
That nothing cures. An immense slackening ache,
As when, thawing, the rigid landscape weeps,
Spreads slowly through them—that, and the voice above
Saying Dear child, and all time has disproved.” - Faith Healing
My favourite poem by him might still be Deceptions, as dark and soul-destroying as it is. It’s the best poem about sexual assault that I’ve read, although my reading might be limited.
A sense of life lived according to love.
To some it means the difference they could make
By loving others, but across most it sweeps
As all they might have done had they been loved.
That nothing cures. An immense slackening ache,
As when, thawing, the rigid landscape weeps,
Spreads slowly through them—that, and the voice above
Saying Dear child, and all time has disproved.” - Faith Healing
My favourite poem by him might still be Deceptions, as dark and soul-destroying as it is. It’s the best poem about sexual assault that I’ve read, although my reading might be limited.
7th Aug 2022 00:16am
a misogynistic, racist old git, he could park all that stuff when he wrote wonderful poetry requires, of course, being selective with words. and perhaps, after all, he could look deeper than his prejudices are only skin deep? I dunno ..
