I’m still in shock that,
of all my lovers, you –
honest to the core – were
hard to please. Made me feel less
than those you said you’d deceived.
I gave my all, I never put you out
Yet you feigned you were on
when really you were out, on that
desire to claim, on that will to bed,
your obvious needs much more than
I could bring. And yet friends ask of you: is he
the man he always was?
Or is he fumbling and stumbling?
Pretending through his down that he’s up?
As you tread from day to night-time gap, the
lack of sex and intimacy trap, the breathless
lull that leaves you stuck: you climb the stair
to meet him there, urging with some force to
leave his control behind, let some dormant force come forth and burst.
Oh that he leaves his ‘stuff’ behind, changes into
a being that seeks some life fulfilment’s
dream. No more the live-alone desolate
feeling. Can he release the guff that’s trapped in his attic?
Original poem: last four lines of Philip Larkin’s Deceptions
inktuition 
I love this! So thought provoking.
Did you find it hard? It reads like it must have flowed forth quite easily… I found it hard!
I chose the lines from a poem that have haunted and shaped my life since I was a teenager. Larkin was ‘it’ for me. So, to sum up, I guess the new stuff that came out felt tricksy, as much as the content of the original poem did. Yet there was a flow too, as I meant what I wrote. Did you find a connection too with your original poem?
Sounds like the perfect inspiration!
My poem was my 200th poem (I write one a day) so I used the first poem I wrote as the basis for my golden shovel, so it naturally had a connection but I’m not sure that didn’t make things harder!
Hey, congratulations on your 200th poem. That is a HUGE achievement. I think it is a creative and self-reflective act to revisit your first poem via napowrimo this year. What an inspiration you are. Good luck. Nothing wrong with making things harder if they produce more beautiful and creative poems. Good luck to you.