22 June 2011

timpeltje: (Default)
Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

____

Ah, Larkin, I remember you. I may not have liked your work all that much, at least there were more than a couple grains of truth in it. 

I saw my procreator today after I don't-know-how-long & I was surprised to see how easy-going our encounter at my grandmother's place was. I dare say it was even enjoyable. 

Only Auden knows why....

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W.H. Auden - Another Time

For us like any other fugitive,
Like the numberless flowers that can't number
And all the beasts that need not remember,
It is today in which we live.

So many try to say Not Now,
So many have forgotten how.
To say I am, and would be
Lost, if they could, in history.

Bowing, for instance, with such old world grace
To a proper flag in a proper place,
Muttering Like ancients as they stump upstairs.
Of Mine and His or Ours and Theirs.

Just as if time were what they used to will
When it was gifted with possession still,
Just as if they were wrong
In no more wishing to belong

No wonder than so many die of grief,
So many are so lonely as they die
No one has yet believed or liked a lie,
Another time has other lives to live.

___