[Roger Slater]

This Be The Reverse

There's nothing like a mum and dad. You know that this is true!
They 'fuck you up', you're telling me? Explain this, please. Says who?
Philip Larkin? Maybe he was fucked up, I will grant you.
But just because he had no children, tell me, friend, why can't you?
A fucked up man gives bad advice, and you think it's worth following?
How thirsty you must be to think his Kool Aid is worth swallowing!
As a poet, he was tops, I guess, though rather catty.
But who should you put faith in? Philip Larkin, or your daddy?
Have children! It's a challenge, but you're up to it. I know it.
The fucked-up thing, I tell you, is to listen to a poet.

[Jerome Betts]

Withdrawn it

[Susan d.S.]

You fuck them up, your mum and dad.
They were quite nice, till they had you.
You make them think of faults they had
And see their failings born anew.

But you’ll be fucked up in your turn*
When you decide to have a kid,
Shall half the time spout pieties,
While half in thrall to darkest id.

Child hands misery to parent.
It thickens like an arctic shelf,
Be chaste, a lone librarian
And do not reproduce yourself.

alternate:

But you'll be fucked up in your turn
When you decide to have a child,
Who half the time is soppy sweet,
And half intent to drive you wild.

or

And half obnoxious, rude, and wild.

[Jayne Osborn]

Larkin' Around

Ridiculous! They fuck you up?
It simply isn't true
to say they mess your life about,
when all the things they do
are selfless acts. They never think
of anyone but you.
Our mums and dads are paragons,
so what we must eschew
is criticism - any sort -
for fulsome praise is due
to all of them. They're marvellous
so let no one pooh-pooh
them further. We turn out the same;
they taught us all they knew.
Why am I being so perverse?
...My parents told me to.

[John Whitworth]

Nice one, Jayne.

[FOsen]

‘They fuck you up’ would prove your Innisfree
You’d said, before the poem then famously
Became your tagline to posterity—
The bee-loud verse that all can quote with glee
And all they know about your poetry.
Though kids remain the one sure guarantee
That one becomes the butt of parody,
Perhaps you should have changed your homily,
To, “Get out now and leave no progeny.”

Frank

[Roger Slater]

They bring you up, your mum and dad,
Which means that they must put aside
The carefree way of life they had
For you, their burden and their pride.

They made mistakes along the way,
And through your life you paid the price,
But you turned out, I think, okay,
So give them credit. My advice:

They fucked you up. That may be true.
Yet you're the biggest joy they've known.
You might as well be joyful too
And fuck up children of your own.