Poet of the Month 097: PHILIP LARKIN

 

PHILIP LARKIN

9 August 1922 — 2 December 1985

 

 

 

 

 

MONEY

 

 

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:

    'Why do you let me lie here wastefully?

I am all you never had of goods and sex.

    You could get them still by writing a few cheques.'

 

So I look at others, what they do with theirs:

    They certainly don't keep it upstairs.

By now they've a second house and car and wife:

    Clearly money has something to do with life

 

– In fact, they've got a lot in common, if you enquire:

    You can't put off being young until you retire,

And however you bank your screw, the money you save

    Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.

 

I listen to money singing.  It's like looking down

    From long french windows at a provincial town,

The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad

    In the evening sun.  It is intensely sad. 

19 February 1973

 

 

THE MOWER

 

 

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found

A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,

Killed.  It had been in the long grass.

 

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.

Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world

Unmendably.  Burial was no help:

 

Next morning I got up and it did not.

The first day after a death, the new absence

Is always the same; we should be careful

 

Of each other, we should be kind

While there is still time.

 

 

 

Autumn 1979

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to read about the life and sample

more of the work of British poet, novelist and critic

PHILIP LARKIN:

 

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/philip-larkin

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might also enjoy:

 

 

Poet of the Month 021: KINGSLEY AMIS

 

 

Poet of the Month 056: TS ELIOT

 

 

Poet of the Month 075: STEVIE SMITH