GONE!

Message to Philip Larkin

You traded on the weight of words past;
flogging a token offering
at the cost of virtue;
lighting a damp rocket
with a spent match
your integrity seemingly,
going, going, going…

Contradictory, media whore,
I call you out,
though wait!

A deeper meaning perhaps?
give them what they want
leave a bit for yourself…

A childless man,
a man of middle years
pining for fields,
playgrounds of his youth
mourning a simpler life,
threatened by change,
while hitching a ride to the cemetery
on a Tory bus.

Your rhetoric here
though perfectly etched
is soiled by indifference
yet sits nicely
as a makeweight track
on a third album.

Maybe, England heeded your words?
After all, fifty years have passed
and trees remain
though no one’s climbing
with louts shackled to devices;
there are fells and meadows,
lakes and ditches too.

Scarred by concrete,
scorched by tyres,
inner-city slums,
yes, but England is not gone.
just changed, as all things are
and will be…

There is green behind the grime
just punch a hole in the ozone, you’ll find it.
So, count your coinage,
sip brandy,
present your spectacled smile
to an empty room,
and enjoy the company.