It’s April. This is one of two months where I try to blog daily, and I find it a strange coincidence that November–when I write daily pieces of gratitude–is one month before the end of 1st semester; April–when I post daily poems for National Poetry Month–is one month before the end of 2nd semester. I usually start November and April feeling somewhat bleak, but striving to blog every day somehow lifts me out of my funk.
But today’s poem is gonna be bleak and funky. And not the good kind of funky.
It was a hard week, and I walked out the building today feeling like a complete failure. Just top-to-bottom, can’t-do-anything-right kind of failure. So here’s a little poem about failure. Enjoy.
“To Failure” by Philip Larkin
You do not come dramatically, with dragons
That rear up with my life between their paws
And dash me butchered down beside the wagons,
The horses panicking; nor as a clause
Clearly set out to warn what can be lost,
What out-of-pocket charges must be borne
Expenses met; nor as a draughty ghost
That’s seen, some mornings, running down a lawn.
It is these sunless afternoons, I find
Install you at my elbow like a bore
The chestnut trees are caked with silence. I’m
Aware the days pass quicker than before,
Smell staler too. And once they fall behind
They look like ruin. You have been here some time.
