Love Again

Portrait of Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin 1922–1985

Love again: wanking at ten past three (Surely he's taken her home by now?), The bedroom hot as a bakery, The drink gone dead, without showing how To meet tomorrow, and afterwards, And the usual pain, like dysentery.

Someone else feeling her breasts and cunt, Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare, And me supposed to be ignorant, Or find it funny, or not to care, Even ... but why put it into words? Isolate rather this element

That spreads through other lives like a tree And sways them on in a sort of sense And say why it never worked for me. Something to do with violence A long way back, and wrong rewards, And arrogant eternity.

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  1. kelly United States

    I'm sorry but philip if your girl was cheating why did u do her it just doesnt seem right you should break up with her.

  2. kay China

    it emphasizes a sense of loss and detachment, especially in the alienating context of a bright commercialised modern world, his poetry continually meditates on the evasive nature of happiness and commitment.

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