The poem
Talking in bed ought to be easiest Lying together there goes back so far An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently. Outside the wind's incomplete unrest builds and disperses clouds about the sky.
And dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind Or not untrue and not unkind.
Talking in Bed expresses misgivings about the possibility of human intimacy and thus touches upon the problematic value of human communication in general. This image of conversation within which there are no barriers to sincerity, he claims is never fully lives up to; as time goes by, within a relationship or a marriage , then a certain silence enroaches, a certain reserve or perhaps a drought of things to say. When reading this poem for the first time, I couldn't quite underdstand why the two people are finding it difficult to communicate, they seem isloated, but they are far from isloation. It's a very ambiguous poem!! Feel free to to disagree!
As part of Larkin's poetry was devoted to the problem of passing of time, I have the impression that in this poem he longs for his 'young days", because finally when there was end of hypocrisy and"sexual intercourses began" and "Life was never better than in ninteen sixty three" it was rather late for him.
isolation
this poem is avery good poem
The bed is "an emblem of two people being honest" a place supposedly for warmth, comfort, intimacy and connection. It represents the delusion of an easy perfect marriage but the fact this line is one of the few without 10 syllables (it has 11) shows the subtle lie behind this assumption. "Outside the wind's incomplete unrest" is a pathetic fallacy for loneliness, coldness, emptiness. There are only 9 syllables and…
Read the whole commentThe bed is "an emblem of two people being honest" a place supposedly for warmth, comfort, intimacy and connection. It represents the delusion of an easy perfect marriage but the fact this line is one of the few without 10 syllables (it has 11) shows the subtle lie behind this assumption. "Outside the wind's incomplete unrest" is a pathetic fallacy for loneliness, coldness, emptiness. There are only 9 syllables and so the line is also "incomplete" as is the marriage - this isn't a passing notion but a foreshadowing of something the narrator will continue to experience as long as he is with this woman. The "unrest" links nicely to "bed" which is meant to be the ultimate place of rest. The narrator finally gives up to settle for civility or words "not untrue and not unkind" because he learns that because of how he now feels about this woman, he can no longer be both "true and kind" but rather one or the other.
poetry is really easy, look!
my name is larkin,
and i am parking,
my car
talking in the bed
the poem is very enlightening