#the old fools

[darkequinoxe]

[...] a unique endeavour To bring to bloom the million-petalled flower Of being here.

from Philip Larkin’s ‘The Old Fools’

[jesus-montoya]

What do they think has happened, the old fools, To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose It’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools, And you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose, They could alter things back to when they danced all night, Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September? Or do they fancy there’s really been no change, And they’ve always behaved as if they were crippled or tight, Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming Watching light move? If they don’t (and they can’t), it’s strange: Why aren’t they screaming? At death, you break up: the bits that were you Start speeding away from each other for ever With no one to see. It’s only oblivion, true: We had it before, but then it was going to end, And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour To bring to bloom the million-petaled flower Of being here. Next time you can’t pretend There’ll be anything else. And these are the first signs: Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they’re for it: Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines – How can they ignore it? Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms Inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can’t quite name; each looms Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning, Setting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting A known book from the shelves; or sometimes only The rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning, The blown bush at the window, or the sun’s Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely Rain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live: Not here and now, but where all happened once. This is why they give An air of baffled absence, trying to be there Yet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving Incompetent cold, the constant wear and tear Of taken breath, and them crouching below Extinction’s alp, the old fools, never perceiving How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet: The peak that stays in view wherever we go For them is rising ground. Can they never tell What is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night? Not when the strangers come? Never, throughout The whole hideous, inverted childhood? Well, We shall find out.

The Old Fools - Philip Larkin

[cha-lii]

shoutout to my 6th year english teacher for making us study philip larkin. really fucked me up. 10/10 no notes.

[thereisnomail]

[hush-syrup]

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting people you know, yet can’t quite name.

From The Old Fools by Philip Larkin

[hush-syrup]

An air of baffled absence, trying to be there yet being here.

From The Old Fools by Philip Larkin

[boomtown-rat]

A really wonderful animation and poem... Certainly gives you a lot to think about.

[literature285mythologies-blog]

January 11th, 2012

We all are scared of death.  Everyone who has read this, is reading this or who may read this in the future is scared of death.  Scared of dying.  Scared of not existing.  Scared of being alone.  We have all woke "at four to a soundless dark".  To me, the feeling of a soundless dark is that feeling that I get at night, when I have to turn off the lights in the basement and head up three dark flights of stairs to my room.  I'm one of those people who gets that feeling at the bottom of the stairs.  That tingly feeling when its quiet and you can't quite remember that there are other people in the house with you.  When your stomach's in your throat and you're the last one awake and you wish you could hear the sounds of your parent's breathing so that you could be certain that someone was there.  Next to you, or in the house with you, or anywhere at all because you're not sure if the world around you has stopped and you feel totally alone.  And, for me at least, there’s a kind of insane glee, almost like a nervous laughter, in this knowledge, that there is not another soul in the world.  Being at the bottom of those stairs, and dashing up them is like being on a roller coaster as it clicks slowly upwards until it finally reaches its peak and you plunge down.  You're not sure whether to scream or laugh so your laughter is a bit manic, your eyes are a bit too wide and you just can't wait for it to be over while wishing that it could go forever at the same time.  That odd mixture of fear and glee that makes your heart beat a little too fast and your breaths come in gasps.  And when I wake up at four in the morning with my heart beating and my breaths choppy, its because I know its coming.  Maybe it’s nothingness like Philip Larkin so clearly believes.   Maybe our soul is immortal and there is something else out there waiting for us.  I wasn’t raised religious so I don’t know what I believe, but I think that I worry about being alone.  I don’t really care if I stop existing after I die.  The possibility of oblivion, of just stopping, doesn’t frighten me.  But how scary and how terribly sad, to be alone for eternity.  With no one “to touch or taste or smell […, with] nothing to love or link with.”  Just to find yourself forever alone, in the dark, panicking at the bottom of the stairs.