My favourite poem.
This Be The Verse, by Philip Larkin
They fu*k you up, your mum 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 fu*ked 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.
Ape Experiment Room
Buried among white rooms
Whose lights in clusters beam
Like suddenly-caused pain,
And where behind rows of mesh
Uneasy shifting resumes
As sterilisers steam
And the routine begins again
Of putting questions to flesh
That no one would think to ask
But a Ph.D. with a beard
And nympho wife who -
But
There, I was saying, are found
The bushy, T-shaped mask,
And below, the smaller, eared
Head like a grave nut,
And the arms folded round.
Philip Larkin, 1965
Take One Home for the Kiddies, by Philip Larkin
On shallow straw, in shadeless glass,
Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep:
No dark, no dam, no earth, no grass -
Mam, get us one of them to keep.
Living toys are something novel,
But it soon wears off somehow.
Fetch the shoebox, fetch the shovel -
Mam, we're playing funerals now.
Originally posted by demonseedYou left out the italics.
Take One Home for the Kiddies, by Philip Larkin
On shallow straw, in shadeless glass,
Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep:
No dark, no dam, no earth, no grass -
Mam, get us one of them to keep.
Living toys are something novel,
But it soon wears off somehow.
Fetch the shoebox, fetch the shovel -
Mam, we're playing funerals now.
Originally posted by murrowIt's not a goldfish anymore, but it may still be a fish. I find it more likely (although still highly unlikely) that a goldfish turns into some other fish than that a goldfish turns into a human or a whale.
'when i WAS a goldfish' ... it is clearly written by someone who speaks english but used to be a goldfish.