To be a bitter, lonely poet,
To walk home through a dark village in the cold and twilight,
In the frosty half-Winter
Of some place in the Fens
Or perhaps the West Country.
Then to approach your own small cottage
And see the windows faintly glowing yellow with the warm lamp-light
And find it not romantic, but bleak and bitter,
Then to fumble
At the door with your Key in the cold.
To stumble
In and pour a drink to steady nerves and clear your head
And another and a half-dozen after that,
Then wake at noon with an appalling headache
And swear aloud “Never Again!”
Knowing full well tonight you’ll do the same.
And then to sit in the Pub for tea
And eat chicken and chips in a basket
And taste the bitter and vile salt
As the storm blows warm and welcoming outside,
To come Home
And hear the Wife nag nag nag about Money
How you don’t work hard enough at that little village school
With the kids who’re up themselves and sneer
And their big dull farmer fathers
Who talk excitedly of pigs
And subsidies
And all that’s new in one whole Hundred years
Is the bloody millionaires
Who commute to town each day in Bentleys
At six o’clock
And always wake you early.
And you look out at the Moor and wait for death
‘Til the cold gets too much
And all, all of this
So, so much the better.
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