Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited.
Then children strewn on steps or road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and stowed,
And sense the solving emptiness
That lies just under all we do,
And for a second get it whole,
So permanent and blank and true.
The fastened doors recede. Poor soul,
They whisper at their own distress;
For borne away in deadened air
May go the sudden shut of loss
Round something nearly at an end,
And what cohered in it across
The years, the unique random blend
Of families and fashions, there
At last begin to loosen. Far
From the exchange of love to lie
Unreachable insided a room
The trafic parts to let go by
Brings closer what is left to come,
And dulls to distance all we are.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- To John Hamilton Reynolds poem – John Keats poems
- When I’m among a Blaze of Lights by Siegfried Sassoon
- Юлия Друнина – Девчонка – что надо!
- The Winds Out of the West Land Blow poem – A. E. Housman
- Five Ways To Kill A Man poem – Andre Breton poems
- A Poet039s Privilege
- A Dream by William Blake
- Михаил Кузмин – Звезда Афродиты
- Федор Сологуб – Снежное поле бесшумно
- Stillborn by Sylvia Plath
- Myself
- Parliament Hill Fields by Sylvia Plath
- Robert Burns: Open The Door To Me, Oh:
- Gray Eyes by Sara Teasdale
- A Tombless Epitaph by Samuel Coleridge
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).

Philip Arthur Larkin (1922-1985), Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Cavalier of the Order of the Companions of Honour, was an English poet, novelist, and librarian.