Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Everyone Means Well, and Then There is Biology

This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you up 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. 

Philip Larkin, Collected Poems, The Marvel Press and Faber and Faber, East Saint Kilda, London, 2003, pg. 142.

3 comments:

  1. Wow - that exonerates me!! Very true, but if everyone took heed, no human race (which might not bea bad thing for the planet about now)

    I actually think that is the challenge - a bit like some weird game where you get all the pieces of a mechanism that is broken and have to figure out which bits to fix, which to chuck out and which to re-create to make it work properly. Some people never get there, most part of the way - very few get it working smoothly - and then don't need it because they have evolved themselves out of the game..

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  2. Ha Ha Ha :) LOL, loved it. Yep some folk just want to pass on their Jeans... But then all denim fades with age! And all the fuck-ups come out in the wash...

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  3. Very good, Tim. Thanks for your comments.

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