A response to Larkin’s poem ‘The Old Fools’
No, Philip, they’re not fools
they’re just old, the world over
mind-boggling millions of them
the lot who are always losing things —
sometimes not only things —
the stooped battalions for whom
bladders and stairs are now
an issue along with banks
without cashiers, opening tins
staying awake after lunch.
Of course they drool, fart
noisily like well-fed cattle
close up, don’t always sniff
too good, but that’s a station
to which all are headed.
What interests more
is something that you judged
as weakness and they’re
too modest to say is courage;
theirs is no witless failure
to fear the dark alp, days
spent in vacant dreaming.
It’s simply that they can’t
see the point in screaming.
