They Fuck You Up

By ralph

Thu, 31 Oct 2013
  • 757 reads
1 comments
 

 

Even now
I sometimes
write them off.
My Dad.
My Mum.

A quandary.

However much I try
to rage.
It doesn’t seem to work.

Yeah,
they fuck you up.
Your Mum and Dad.
And all that.

Larkin.
Just in case
you didn’t know.

Bit of a wanker.
To be honest.

Well,
Let me tell you
about
the day
when my chips
were down.

I was a boy,
In my twenties.
Looking for heroes
from my
Basildon bedroom.

I’d found one.
Tom Waits.

Sold out at the Dominion,
Tottenham Court Road.
London.

‘Here’s forty quid son.
and a tenner for a drink.
There will be touts,
don’t haggle.
Forty quid.’

I divided.
and I loved.

On payday.

‘Can you lend me fifty pound, son?’

They fuck you up.
Your Mum,
and Dad.

Certificate 18
Poem
Wild Black Curly Hair
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Tom Waits and Philip Larkin both have creative strengths but from what I know of Larkin he had some truly repugnant attitudes and behaviours whereas Tom seems the more endearing of the two. My favourite song is Come on up to the House from the CD Mule Variations. 'come down off the cross we can use the wood' - that's Philip put to rights. Nice poem.       Elsie