Tuesday, January 20, 2009

External Form

Her I Am by Roger McGough

Here I am
getting on for seventy
and never having gone to work in ladies' underwear

Never run naked at night in the rain
Made love to a girl I'd just met on a plane

At that awkward age now between birth and death
I think of all the outrages unperpetrated
opportunities missed

The dragons chased
The maidens kissed
The wines still untasted
The oceans uncrossed
The fantasies wasted
The mad urges lost

Here I am
as old as Methuselah
was when he was my age
and never having stepped outside for a fight

Crossed on red, pissed rose (or white)
Pretty dull for a poet, I suppose, eh? Quite.

McGough is obviously looking back on missed opportunities in life. He feels as if there is so much that he hasn't done, therefore making him "dull". The list of things he has not done allows for the reader to see that the author is actively thinking through life. That there was not as much contemplation towards the actual activities as there was about the entire meaning of the poem and the meaning of missed opportunities. What is missed does not matter as much as the fact that opportunities were wasted and time can not be replayed.

No comments: