Eddie Wainwright
Being Old
Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside your head and people in them, acting ....
Philip Larkin, ‘The Old Fools’.
Perhaps. And everyone’s rooms are different. But I suspect
finally those people wander off; having better things to do
than entertain the presently-departing. I imagine my rooms void
save for echoes: voices, yes, scraps of the inconsequential
chatter that bound you all together before the ties
began to loosen. But a medley of other sounds too that drift about
unbidden: fragments of song, tunes beyond conscious reach
raked up by the backward-glancing unforgetting mind
which hoards these scraps to lie in wait for you.
You roam from room to room, aimless but half-expecting
last-minute revelations, but find none, find neither
answers nor questions. The rooms are white and bare,
their lighted bulbs unshaded, floors uncarpeted,
and there is nowhere to sit - though it occurs to you
you’ll not be there long enough for that to signify.
They have a vaguely inquisitorial air, but there is no inquisitor;
no one and nothing in this washed-out, vacant place
but you, waiting for the light in your head to be extinguished.
Inside your head and people in them, acting ....
Philip Larkin, ‘The Old Fools’.
Perhaps. And everyone’s rooms are different. But I suspect
finally those people wander off; having better things to do
than entertain the presently-departing. I imagine my rooms void
save for echoes: voices, yes, scraps of the inconsequential
chatter that bound you all together before the ties
began to loosen. But a medley of other sounds too that drift about
unbidden: fragments of song, tunes beyond conscious reach
raked up by the backward-glancing unforgetting mind
which hoards these scraps to lie in wait for you.
You roam from room to room, aimless but half-expecting
last-minute revelations, but find none, find neither
answers nor questions. The rooms are white and bare,
their lighted bulbs unshaded, floors uncarpeted,
and there is nowhere to sit - though it occurs to you
you’ll not be there long enough for that to signify.
They have a vaguely inquisitorial air, but there is no inquisitor;
no one and nothing in this washed-out, vacant place
but you, waiting for the light in your head to be extinguished.
Page(s) 69
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The