BORED YESTERDAY (LARKINESQUE)

So – one day nearer the grave, then?
Poor unnecessary little sod;
I have to say I find it odd
How we keep having kids when
Most that you’ll do in this first year
Is simply kip and crap and cry
As you’ll do again, as you near
That day when you get old and die.

In between: boredom, betrayal.
Most things you’ll try, you’re bound to fail.

Hospital, birth, school, work, hospital, death,
(And don’t talk to me of love and marriage –
They go together like gun and cartridge)
It’s barely worth drawing another breath.

Life fucks you up, then fucks you down –
Why wave, just bloody well drown!

(1994)


In an uncharacteristically joyful and life-affirming moment, Philip Larkin once wrote a poem called ‘Born Yesterday’ to celebrate the birth of a child born to his friend Kingsley Amis. Then he got back to being The Master of Misery. However, like other arch-miserabilists such as Leonard Cohen and Morrissey, Larkin’s work is often very funny – and that’s what I’ve tried to capture in this little tribute.

Apologies for the effing and blinding but, if you consult PL’s poem ‘This Be The Verse’, you’ll see why. Apologies also to Stevie Smith for kidnapping her most famous title for my punchline.

The picture is one of the last taken of Larkin and possibly the only one of him laughing. He was librarian at Leicester university back in the 1940s when there were only about 200 students, you know...