LATE STARTER

The inspiration for this piece of humorous verse was Philip Larkin's poem with the same title which Latin scholars will instantly recognise as meaning a remarkable or auspicious year. Larkin's poem was an attempt to pinpoint the precise moment that the sexual revolution began.  

ANNUS MIRABILIS

Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three …

                   Philip Larkin

Yes, sex began in 63

for Philip Larkin and for me.

Before that so-auspicious year

hand-holding was the most boys got:

the rules for love were strict and clear,

what might be done and what might not.

In cinema back-rows we’d miss

the hero’s comeback from the brink

for little more than a chaste kiss

while spilling our Kiora drink

then, unconvincingly, we’d brag,

to other spotty celibates

about our prowess, scrounge a fag,

become a hero to our mates.

In hormone-bedrooms, going blind,

we’d fantasise on girls who would,

because there surely were that kind

of girl, or so we understood.  

At seventeen, those hormones howled:

it was a bitch to be a male.

Though we dashed out, all downy-jowled,

each night, undoubtedly, we’d fail.

We’d traipse home late, repressed, depressed

because some girl had no-ed not yes-ed.