CEMETERY ROAD
“may not mean to/
but they do”
I’ve read that
this be the Larkin poem
by any metric
it’s a real shocker
give it its due
painfully spot on
must have
begun somewhere
with Adam and Eve
tragic trace elements
springing out
of the big
bang
catastrophic for
the happiness of our species
and so me
not yet teenage
about to be whisked, nay,
catapulted to Africa
and apartheid
South Africa
at that
far from this little British
cul-de-sac
joy there in the sweet
English place of
pastoral they
call
a pastoral
where my father dutifully
taught me how
to ride
a bicycle
not much interest in my
life
this broken life
after which
my father’s little dream
of upping
roots, defining
his Empire
somehow not
translating
finding purchase, believers,
means of manufacture
will not
let this poem end as
dead at
point blank range
as Larkin’s does
poems 2 die for 