This be the verse
They fuck you up, your mom and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you 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
Because it is you
Senseless ire – it renders me speechless –
Breeding only rancour, this foul rotting bitterness,
And passive aggression:
Shrouded in absolute silence.
For two decades, hopefully less –
I have fed these, my blasphemous demons, in secret,
Dumped my grating, screeching, seething convulsions of base emotion
Frequently, fearfully,
Into this well of repression
Dug deeply, violently, desperately buried countless evils
In the name of gratitude, love, or some sacred right you claim.
At times, when rendered helpless victim –
Because I was never born equipped nor taught
How to wrestle with your wills,
Or find reason and calm in our miniscule battles
Only to succumb or withdraw in hatred –
That the buried wrath would not corrode the love that should be
Detangle itself from the roiling struggle.
I am forced to face –
Proximity breeds contempt, indeed,
You probably feel the same anyway –
Every round cracks open the fault-line, breaks the restraints
Threatens to engulf me in frenzied rage
But I turn away
And run.
Though not before condemnation
Fiend I am, though fiend I toil not to be
In your eyes I question my existence, what I am, how, and why.
This skin-crawling gaping maw we own cannot be denied.
I only strive to hide my hideous anger behind
The wall we have built between us
And pray for some parody of cold war –
This ironic harmonious silence – may it prevail
In these moments of bleak rationale,
All amounts to nothing.
Is both Problem and Solution.
While Blood, which we share
Only confuses with its tainted complexity,
Forbidden as It is to be shed.
