For They Shall Inherit

It’s Friday and so we’ll end the week with a pair of poems. Good Bones by Maggie Smith:

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

Those are just excerpts…click through to read the whole poems. I’ll see you next week.

• Maggie Smith
• parenting
• Philip Larkin
• poetry