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FPC - Mr Bleaney's Room

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    FPC - Mr Bleaney's Room

    'This was Mr Bleaney's room. He stayed
    The whole time he was at the Bodies, till
    They moved him.' Flowered curtains, thin and frayed,
    Fall to within five inches of the sill,

    Whose window shows a strip of building land,
    Tussocky, littered. 'Mr Bleaney took
    My bit of garden properly in hand.'
    Bed, upright chair, sixty-watt bulb, no hook

    Behind the door, no room for books or bags -
    'I'll take it.' So it happens that I lie
    Where Mr Bleaney lay, and stub my fags
    On the same saucer-souvenir, and try

    Stuffing my ears with cotton-wool, to drown
    The jabbering set he egged her on to buy.
    I know his habits - what time he came down,
    His preference for sauce to gravy, why

    He kept on plugging at the four aways -
    Likewise their yearly frame: the Frinton folk
    Who put him up for summer holidays,
    And Christmas at his sister's house in Stoke.

    But if he stood and watched the frigid wind
    Tousling the clouds, lay on the fusty bed
    Telling himself that this was home, and grinned,
    And shivered, without shaking off the dread

    That how we live measures our own nature,
    And at his age having no more to show
    Than one hired box should make him pretty sure
    He warranted no better, I don't know.


    Philip Larkin

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