The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.
Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May.
Aubade by Philip Larkin
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
-- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused -- nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear -- no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realization of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
This poem is pretty long but well worth reading. At first,
I was trying to figure out how this is an aubade but after
reading through a second time I realized that it is possible
that he is a lover of life and that he speaks of his inevitable
departure. Any one else have comments on what this piece may be
about?
You haven't finished your ape, said mother to father,
who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers.
I've had enough monkey, cried father.
You didn't eat the hands, and I went to all the
trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother.
I'll just nibble on its forehead, and then I've had enough,
said father.
I stuffed its nose with garlic, just like you like it, said
mother.
Why don't you have the butcher cut these apes up? You lay
the whole thing on the table every night; the same fractured
skull, the same singed fur; like someone who died horribly. These
aren't dinners, these are post-mortem dissections.
Try a piece of its gum, I've stuffed its mouth with bread,
said mother.
Ugh, it looks like a mouth full of vomit. How can I bite into
its cheek with bread spilling out of its mouth? cried father.
Break one of the ears off, they're so crispy, said mother.
I wish to hell you'd put underpants on these apes; even a
jockstrap, screamed father.
Father, how dare you insinuate that I see the ape as anything
more than simple meat, screamed mother.
Well what's with this ribbon tied in a bow on its privates?
screamed father.
Are you saying that I am in love with this vicious creature?
That I would submit my female opening to this brute? That after
we had love on the kitchen floor I would put him in the oven, after
breaking his head with a frying pan; and then serve him to my husband,
that my husband might eat the evidence of my infidelity . . . ?
I'm just saying that I'm damn sick of ape every night,
cried father.
This is one of the few prose poems that I actually like. I hope my prose poem turns out
this interesting. Enjoy!
