Poeticous Logo
it
English Español Français Italiano
Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin

I Have Started to Say

I have started to say
“A quarter of a century”
Or “thirty years back”
About my own life.
 
It makes me breathless
It’s like falling and recovering
In huge gesturing loops
Through an empty sky.
 
All that’s left to happen
Is some deaths (my own included).
Their order, and their manner,
Remain to be learnt.

#English #XXCentury

Ti è piaciuta questa lettura? Offriteci un caffè!.
Il tuo aiuto ci permette di esistere.
Altre opere di Philip Larkin...
Moonlit Night on the Dniepr, by Arkhip Kuindzhi
Going

There is an evening coming in Across the fields, one never seen… That lights no lamps. Silken it seems at a distance, yet When it is drawn up over the knees…
How Distant

How distant, the departure of youn… Down valleys, or watching The green shore past the salt—whit… Rising and falling. Cattlemen, or carpenters, or keen
The Importance of Elsewhere

Lonely in Ireland, since it was n… Strangeness made sense. The salt… Insisting so on difference, made m… Once that was recognised, we were… Their draughty streets, end—on to…
 1
Skin

Obedient daily dress, You cannot always keep That unfakable young surface. You must learn your lines — Anger, amusement, sleep;
 1
MCMXIV

Those long uneven lines Standing as patiently As if they were stretched outside The Oval or Villa Park, The crowns of hats, the sun
 1
 3
Reasons for Attendance

The trumpet’s voice, loud and auth… Draws me a moment to the lighted g… To watch the dancers —all under tw… Solemnly on the beat of happiness. –Or so I fancy, sensing the smoke…
Why Did I Dream of You Last Night?

Why did I dream of you last night… Now morning is pushing back hair w… Memories strike home, like slaps i… Raised on elbow, I stare at the p… beyond the window.
 1
When First We Faced, and Touching Showed

When first we faced, and touching… How well we knew the early moves, Behind the moonlight and the frost… The excitement and the gratitude, There stood how much our meeting o…
 1
Peasant family at the table, by Jozef Israëls
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… And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their t…
 3
 2
Wires

The widest prairies have electric… For though old cattle know they mu… Young steers are always scenting p… Not here but anywhere. Beyond the… Leads them to blunder up against t…
Man Reading (Nicola d’Inverno), by John Singer Sargent
Maturity

A stationary sense... as, I suppo… I shall have, till my single body… Inaccurate, tired; Then I shall start to feel the ba… Take over, sickening and masterful…
 1
Autobiography at an Air-Station

Delay, well, travellers must expec… Delay. For how long? No one seems… With all the luggage weighed, the… It can’t be long... We amble too… Sit in steel chairs, buy cigarette…
He Hears That His Beloved Has Become Engaged

When she came on, you couldn’t kee… Fighting your way up through the o… Tup—heavy bumpkin, you confused yo… Fell in the drum —how we went ha h… But once you gained her side and s…
Take One Home for the Kiddies

On shallow straw, in shadeless gla… Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep… No dark, no dam, no earth, no gras… Mam, get us one of them to keep. Living toys are something novel,
 1
The Mower

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling… A hedgehog jammed up against the b… Killed. It had been in the long g… I had seen it before, and even fed… Now I had mauled its unobtrusive…
 1



Alto