Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road by Dannie Abse

(Before reading) The name of this poem really stood out for me. It says closure and finality. It's obviously going to be about death.

(After reading) This poem made me think of two things-

1. Home is so Sad by Philip Larkin
2. The Old Apartment, a song by The Barenaked Ladies

First of all, I think the links with Larkin are pretty strong here in that it is about coming back to the family home after the death of a parent (or parents). However, I think that it is so much easier to empathise with the Abse poem because as readers we are FAR more subject to the raw emotion in his poems that we pretty much only see in Larkin when he's talking about music.

I thought of this particular song as I was reading through it because it's also about the idea of going back to a place you once called home and being a little upset about how it couldn't stay that way forever.