Late-Flowering Lust

 Late-Flowering Lust

by John Betjeman (1906-84)

In a TV interview he gave in his old age, Betjeman was asked the conventional question: "Do you have any regrets?"  Replied the poet:  "Yes.  I wish I'd had more sex."  Well, it's never too late...

(Listen to the reading)

My head is bald, my breath is bad,

  Unshaven is my chin,

I have not now the joys I had

  When I was young in sin.

I run my fingers down your dress

  With brandy-certain aim

And you respond to my caress

  And maybe feel the same.

But I've a picture of my own

  On this reunion night,

Wherein two skeletons are shewn

  To hold each other tight;

Dark sockets look on emptiness

  Which once was loving-eyed,

The mouth that opens for a kiss

  Has got no tongue inside.

I cling to you inflamed with fear

  As now you cling to me,

I feel how frail you are my dear

  And wonder what will be--

A week?  or twenty years remain?

  And then--what kind of death?

A losing fight with frightful pain

  Or a gasping fight for breath?

Too long we let our bodies cling,

  We cannot hide disgust

At all the thoughts that in us spring

  From this late-flowering lust.