Larkin lived on Dixon Drive

now he’s still dead

and I’m alive.

He stacked books

with referenced spine

and trousered coin,

paid in fine.

 

I lived just off Ethel Road

half a man

but full-on toad.

Crushed into my loutish form

dull schooling

shaped me

to this norm.

 

Phil moved on,

to Queens and hope

with less despair

and longer rope.

An “elsewhere place”

that pushed his pen

“the salt rebuff” of tougher men.

 

I too, found the Belfast road

its years had turned…

too much implode.

No scholars gown

or tweed for me,

nor friendly tongue

across that sea.

 

He a poet I the fool

two lives not shaped

by finer tools.

Though one sharp mind

was lesser lost

the two seemed spent

at equal cost.