ninety one.

“I hate the way you talk to me,
and the way you cut your hair.

I hate the way you drive my car,
I hate it when you stare.

I hate your big dumb combat boots
and the way you read my mind.

I hate you so much it makes me sick,
it even makes me rhyme.

I hate the way you’re always right,
I hate it when you lie.

I hate it when you make me laugh,
even worse when you make me cry.

I hate it when you’re not around,
and the fact that you didn’t call.

But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you,
not even close,
not even a little bit,

not even at all.”

10 Things I Hate about You,
from “10 Things I Hate about You”, 1999.

eighty three.

I felt awfully in the mood for his voice again today. You too can enjoy it!

previous Billy Collins blogs: nineteen.

seventy eight.

source: lost, sorry.

sixty two.

Final exams are ever approaching, fuck.
As much as everyone keeps assuring me they aren’t the be-all and end-all. Honestly, they might as well be. Without a good mark, I won’t be happy, without a decent mark I may not even get into the course I want. And whilst I understand there are ways around it all, they will take time and that is time I’d much rather spend getting my course over and done with.
There are so many more things I’d much rather be doing, and motivation is more or less absent.

But in the ‘spirit of things’ I’ve been studying my Literature texts. At least these are poetry, I can think properly with these.

So for the next few days I have little doubt Larkin will be prevalent, similarly Thomas too.

For now,

Poetry of Departures

                                Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
                                As epitaph:
                                He chucked up everything
                                And just cleared off,
                                And always the voice will sound
                                Certain you approve
                                This audacious, purifying,
                                Elemental move.

                                And they are right, I think.
                                We all hate home
                                And having to be there:
                                I detest my room,
                                Its specially-chosen junk,
                                The good books, the good bed,
                                And my life, in perfect order:
                                So to hear it said

                                He walked out on the whole crowd
                                Leaves me flushed and stirred,
                                Like Then she undid her dress
                                Or Take that you bastard;
                                Surely I can, If he did?
                                And that helps me stay
                                Sober and industrious.
                                But I’d go today,

                                Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,
                                Crouch in the fo’c’sle
                                Stubbly with goodness, if
                                It weren’t so artificial,
                                Such a deliberate step backwards
                                To create an object:
                                Books; china: a life
                                Reprehensibly perfect.

 Philip Larkin

fifty nine.

going forwards is much more fun silly!

via: Some Required

“Once upon a time, there was Candy and Dan.
Things were very hot that year.
All the wax was melting in the trees.
He would climb balconies, climb everywhere, do anything for her, oh Danny boy.
Thousands of birds, the tiniest birds, adorned her hair.
Everything was gold.
One night the bed caught fire.
He was handsome and a very good criminal.
We lived on sunlight and chocolate bars.
It was the afternoon of extravagant delight.
Danny the daredevil.
Candy went missing.
The days last rays of sunshine cruise like sharks.
I want to try it your way this time.
You came into my life really fast and I liked it.
We squelched in the mud of our joy.
I was wet-thighed with surrender.
Then there was a gap in things and the whole earth tilted.
This is the business.
This, is what we’re after.
With you inside me comes the hatch of death.
And perhaps I’ll simply never sleep again.
The monster in the pool.
We are a proper family now with cats and chickens and runner beans.
Everywhere I looked.
And sometimes I hate you.
Friday — I didn’t mean that, mother of the blueness.
Angel of the storm.
Remember me in my opaqueness.
You pointed at the sky, that one called Sirius or dog star, but on here on earth.
Fly away sun.
Ha ha *beep* ha you are so funny Dan.
A vase of flowers by the bed.
My bare blue knees at dawn.
These ruffled sheets and you are gone and I am going too.
I broke your head on the back of the bed but the baby he died in the morning.
I gave him a name.
His name was thomas.
Poor little god.
His heart pounds like a voodoo drum.”

‘Sunlight and Chocolate Bars’
Candy, 2006