Fifty today, old lad? Well, that’s not doing so bad:
All those years without
Being really buggered about.
The next fifty won’t be so good,
True, but for now – touch wood –
You can eat and booze and the rest of it,
Still get the best of it,
While the shags with fifty or so
Actual years to go
Will find most of them tougher,
The going a good bit rougher
Within the Soviet sphere –
Which means the bastards are here,
Making it perfectly clear
That all double-think
(Both systems on the blink,
East and West the same,
And war just the name of a game)
Is the ballocks it always was.
But will it be clear?
Because
After a whole generation
Of phasing out education,
Throwing the past away,
Letting the language decay,
And expanding the general mind
Till it bursts, we might well find
That it wouldn’t make much odds
To the poor semi-sentient sods
Shuffling round England then
That they’ve lost what made them men.
So bloody good luck to you mate,
That you weren’t born too late
For at least a chance of happiness
Before unchangeable crappiness
Spreads all over the land.
Be glad you’re fifty – and
That you got there while things were nice,
In a world worth looking at twice.
So here’s wishing you many more years,
But not all that many. Cheers!
Kingsley Amis (1922–1995) is much better known as a novelist. Although he carried on writing it, poetry took a back seat after the success of his novel Lucky Jim in 1954.
As the first line makes clear, Ode to Me must have been published sometime after his 50th birthday, which would have been in 1972.
The cold war references mark the poem out as very much of its time.
I am including it here for two reasons. First, I like it, particularly for the down-to-earth humour. And second, it is hard to find online, and I think it needs to be more widely known. So, here it is, on what would have been Kingsley Amis’ birthday, April 16.
The Good Reader 