Selected Poems 1930-1988 Read Online Free PDF Page B

now hair ebbing gums ebbing ebbing home
    good as gold now in the prime after a brief prodigality
    yea and suave
    suave urbane beyond good and evil
    biding my time without rancour you may take your oath
    distraught half-crooked courting the sneers of these fauns these smart nymphs
    clipped like a pederast as to one trouser-end
    sucking in my bloated lantern behind a Wild Woodbine
    cinched to death in a filthy slicker
    flinging the proud Swift forward breasting the swell of Stürmers
    I see main verb at last
    her whom alone in the accusative
    I have dismounted to love
    gliding towards me dauntless nautch-girl on the face of the waters
    dauntless daughter of desires in the old black and flamingo
    get along with you now take the six the seven the eight or the little single-decker
    take a bus for all I care walk cadge a lift
    home to the cob of your web in Holles Street
    and let the tiger go on smiling
    in our hearts that funds ways home

Sanies II
    there was a happy land
    the American Bar
    in Rue Mouffetard
    there were red eggs there
    I have a dirty I say henorrhoids
    coming from the bath
    the steam the delight the sherbet
    the chagrin of the old skinnymalinks
    slouching happy body
    loose in my stinking old suit
    sailing slouching up to Puvis the gauntlet of tulips
    lash lash me with yaller tulips I will let down
    my stinking old trousers
    my love she sewed up the pockets alive the live-oh she did she said that was better
    spotless then within the brown rags gliding
    frescoward free up the fjord of dyed eggs and thongbells
    I disappear don’t you know into the local
    the mackerel are at billiards there they are crying the scores
    the Barfrau makes a big impression with her mighty bottom
    Dante and blissful Beatrice are there
    prior to Vita Nuova
    the balls splash no luck comrade
    Gracieuse is there Belle-Belle down the drain
    booted Percinet with his cobalt jowl
    they are necking gobble-gobble
    suck is not suck that alters
    lo Alighieri has got off au revoir to all that
    I break down quite in a titter of despite
    hark
    upon the saloon a terrible hush
    a shiver convulses Madame de la Motte
    it courses it peals down her collops
    the great bottom foams into stillness
    quick quick the cavaletto supplejacks for mumbo-jumbo
    vivas puellas mortui incurrrrrsant boves
    oh subito subito ere she recover the cang bamboo for bastinado
    a bitter moon fessade à la mode
    oh Becky spare me I have done thee no wrong spare me damn thee
    spare me good Becky
    call off thine adders Becky I will compensate thee in full
    Lord have mercy upon
    Christ have mercy upon us
    Lord have mercy upon us

Serena I
    without the grand old British Museum
    Thales and the Aretino
    on the bosom of the Regent’s Park the phlox
    crackles under the thunder
    scarlet beauty in our world dead fish adrift
    all things full of gods
    pressed down and bleeding
    a weaver-bird is tangerine the harpy is past caring
    the condor likewise in his mangy boa
    they stare out across monkey-hill the elephants
    Ireland
    the light creeps down their old home canyon
    sucks me aloof to that old reliable
    the burning btm of George the drill
    ah across the way a adder
    broaches her rat
    white as snow
    in her dazzling oven strom of peristalsis
    limae labor
    ah father father that art in heaven
    I find me taking the Crystal Palace
    for the Blessed Isles from Primrose Hill
    alas I must be that kind of person
    hence in Ken Wood who shall find me
    my breath held in the midst of thickets
    none but the most quarried lovers
    I surprise me moved by the many a funnel hinged
    for the obeisance to Tower Bridge
    the viper’s curtsy to and from the City
    till in the dusk a lighter
    blind with pride
    tosses aside the scarf of the bascules
    then in the grey hold of the ambulance
    throbbing on the brink ebb of sighs
    then I hug me below among the canaille
    until a guttersnipe blast his cernèd eyes
    demanding ’ave I done with the Mirror
    I stump off in a fearful rage under Married Men’s