LADY OF BABYLON

Pink face of deftly prepared flesh,

Soft limbs whose language you employ

In scheduled hours of bartered joy

Against the limbs of a pale boy

Who flounders in your mesh.

What ashes hide beyond your eye,

What dry winds fanged with thin disdain

Below the convex of your brain

Howl through the bleached bones in the plain

Where your sucked lovers lie?

God save you, exquisite-obscene,

For her poor sake who one time bore

Your sword-edged baby limbs that tore

Red lumps of flesh from her heart's core,

Christ save you, Magdalene!

THIS IS THE HAPPY HUSBAND,

THIS IS HE

Like a sleek slab of pork his pate

Bends moonwise over the heaped plate.

And from his twin-topped whiskers stoop

Icicular, two beads of soup.

His belly whimpers in the dun

Processes of digestion,

While his fat fingers play like nice-

Behaved and clean-licked sewer mice.

His speckled orbs lurk deep and squat,

Two sick thick toads in a pool's rot.

Before him on the platter lies

A girl's heart salt with miseries.

His lip sweats thirst. A withdrawn cork

Plops ... he lifts his knife and fork...

Down the pink champaign of his chops

Glucose appreciation drops...

Shepherd Singing Ragtime, and Other Poems · 第 20 / 32 题