Plastic Hope

Next, Please (by Philip Larkin)

Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,

Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!

Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked,
Each rope distinct,

Flagged, and the figurehead wit golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last

We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.

In the first stanza, the author clearly sets the theme of the poem: people tend to look into the future neglecting the present. That’s where the inability to enjoy life comes from. He says that we are “too eager”, enhancing the negative connotation that that involves. He also describes people negatively saying that “we pick up bad habits of expectancy”, always longing for something that we do not have and always expecting something to happen. He describes our hopes by saying “always approaching”, which means that they never actually arrive.

The poem is dominated by an image introduced in the second stanza; an extended metaphor in which our hopes are said to be “a sparkling armada –group of ships- of promises”. Ironically, the author reflects on “how slow they are and how much time they waste” when it is actually us the ones who waste our lives by means of not leaving in the present. “They leave us holding wretched stalks of disappointment”, the author uses the word stalk, which is the long narrow part of a plant that supports leaves, fruits or flowers, to represent the potential of a flower, just as we are left with only potential and no time to fulfill our wishes and desires.

“It never anchors” and “it’s no sooner present that it turns to past” mean that when we finally get what we want we realize that we still feel empty, that the hollow cannot be filled up, so another hope arises and as we live looking into the future, the present we neglect is already considered past.

In the last stanza the writer uses a metaphor comparing death with a “black-sailed unfamiliar ship” that brings “birdless sound”, making it look very eerie and sinister. Probably he is trying to tell us that today, birds do sing, but we don’t listen to them since we are too busy looking into the future. Expectancy slowly consumes us. So, we have become functionally deaf.

From my standpoint I will say that this poem deals with false hopefulness. We are always desiring things that are out of our reach and when we finally manage to get them we don’t feel complete, so we go on to another hope or desire. We are always trying to find ourselves but we can never possibly achieve that task. I suppose that that inner hollow makes us go on living senselessly. We die without having found ourselves, and that is, indeed, the saddest tragedy. Death has, ironically, become into the only way to wake up from this nightmare.

Death II

Death II (by me)

Death spiraling up and down

The twisted roots of the tree of despondency

Swirling like a swarm of locusts

Across time and space

Inexorably erasing my will to live

Uninterruptedly making me die

Joy born, by and from, life

Is just a dread mask

To smother sorrow in non-realization

Turning life in a lengthy consolation

The ultimate aim of life is Death beyond Death

An aimless aim

I am quite reluctant to relinquish my focus on this topic. It could be said that it is taking everything away from me: my strength, my will to live, my ability to believe and my ability to symbolize and fantasize. It is unacceptable. I really do not understand how people manage to resign themselves to the heartless reality that surrounds them. Maybe they find something that makes up for all the suffering that the complex phenomenon of life conveys. But, in my own experience, I have always found solitude, pain and despair; the three pillars in which the foundations of my existence are based on.

I want to clarify that mine is not a pessimistic view of life, it is just a down-to-earth approach to existence.

People usually live their whole lives inhaling the pestiferous stench that from their obsessive, almost-blind optimism stems. In spite of the fact that their lives are devoid of meaning and fraught with futility and suffering, they just go on, hoping for a new dawn to come. But, when the sun never rises, days freeze and hope is lost.

I think that people are not completely aware of the ruthlessness, impartiality and ordinariness with which Death works. I really do not bother about the fact that people accept death, so much as the blithe and idiotic way they do it.

Death

Death (by me)

Hopelessly awaiting
The day I will be reaped
The Greek tragedy’s revival
A whole lifetime seeking
Caught between non-existent lines
Belligerent confrontation
Lightness, weight
Unintelligible divergence
Unimportant choices
Irrelevant corollary
Non-tying artificial burdens

Vacuity
Fear

Worms spitting out saliva
Flesh-disintegration eve
Larvae sprouting out
Swimming
A sea green ocean
Of festering tissue
Liquefied body
Jaws biting
Dismembering
Dissecting

It’s 00:50. I am standing on the threshold of what is going to be an endless night. Everything looks so quite, I am really away from the hectic sounds of people’s murmur. It’s still raining. I can hear no more the droplets crashing against the walls. Even the lurking semblance of the droplets’ dead bodies on the windows has gone unheard. Like serpents of water they vanish, leaving no trail. Under deep silence I remain. There’s nothing else, but my thoughts. An eclosion of incongruity and incoherence arises in me. Inconsistency shows itself, as the hellish choir in my head starts to distort. The voices, my own voice, they get distant. They diminish in strength, they become weaker and weaker, till they get lost. Everything is so quiet, too quite. Only I can feel my thoughts mourning for someone who has past away. Fearing the inevitable and bewailing the unchangeable. I suppose that someone is probably me. I gazed into the abyssal depths of existence and the chaotic whirl dragged me down. I am now the abyss that I was so terrified of. I have touched the core. My existence is naked. I destroyed everything that was me, I destroyed everything I once had. I mindlessly decided to embrace despair and certainty. Death has become into my way of existence, I am at its disposal. Death owns my whole existence. I am dead. Only vacuity will ensue.