Miscellaneous Unpublished Poetry

Miscellaneous Unpublished Poetry

Contents

— 7 Hokku

— A Sailor's Kiss is Branded

— All Hail Ye Glaciers Splendid

— Austerity

— Bed, The

— Boer Commando's Song

— Chants Before Battle

— Diabetes

— Did You Speak Truly

— Divine Durian, The

— Elegy

— End, The

— Fragment of an Ode on British Agriculture

— God Save Our Gracious George

— Gods Took Counsel With the Lords of Fate, The

— Gr-r-r-r-r-r!

— Grammarian Croaks, A

— Have You Got an Invitation to the Marriage of the Lamb?

— He Who Seduced Me First

— I Am Nothing

— I Can't Abide

— I Love My Love with an L.

— I Want to Write a Poem Proclaiming the Confession of Every Star-Soul

— I Went to Call on Edward Clodd

— I Went to Call on William Blake

— I Who Am Dying for Thy Kiss

— If You Rupture Your Peritoneum

— In Disillusion

— In Fur and Silk

— Isabella II

— Last Journey, The

— Last Quatorzani, The

— Let Me Arise-and Freedom!

— Love Me or Leave Me

— Loving Ballad of John Antony Long, The

— Lyric of Love to Leah

— Musings on a Wet Sunday Afternoon

— My Back is Saddled with the Scum

— On A Scrap of Paper

— Parody on Xmas-A Ballad

— Phlebitis

— Poetry Society, The

— Recruits

— Red Lips of the Octopus, The

— Saint and the Thief, The

— Song

— Spirit of Solitude, The

— Stray Verse

— Sunrise on Trebizond

— To "Him" of Promise

— To Pass Through the Pale Streets

— Ultimatum

— Why it Would Tickle Me to Death

— X-Mas - A Ballad

— You are so Live with Laughter

— Your Love is Light

7 Hokku

Masterful Autumn!

Yes, put coal on the scuttle.

Life is alluring.

● ● ● ● ● ● ●

A View from Battersea Park

Gwendolen Otter

Red leaves drop on the flagstones

Moons of abortion.

● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Pigtails

Ogle my darling.

Piccadilly in August!

God and the daisies.

● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Jane Cheron

Opium keeps me.

Ever throned in the snake, O

Slumber Satanic.

● ● ● ● ● ● ●

The Benefits of Science.

A Hymn to Prometheus.

Twopence to Holborn.

Four towers loom on the river

Faraday. Kaukas.

● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Buddhism

I am a petal

Darkling, lost on the river.

Being-illusion

(Saying I am proves I am only a detached derelict in the darkness

of ignorance whose essential quality is the illusion of existence.)

● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Ida Nelidoff

Vigils of Vice. Mad

Flower. Pierced of amber,

Portal of ruby.

A Sailor's Kiss is Branded

A sailor's kiss is branded on my throat,

Where his teeth infamous bit hard the skin

At that strong moment when the eager note

Of passion [illegible] and splashes and grows thin

And throbs and crashes in one fearful sound

Where all life stops and all desire dies

When my sick body in his love lies drowned,

And he lies corpse-wise on me, nor will rise,

Though my breath shudders, and my soul be dead

His mark is sweet, and I grow amorous

Willing again to have the satyr head

Roam o'er my flesh with teeth lascivious.

To feel my bowels bloated with the flood

Of boiling [illegible] love-drops and exultant blood.

All Hail Ye Glaciers Splendid

All hail ye glaciers splendid

That touch the azure sky

Across you we have wended

With joyous hearts and high

The snow is tinged with dawning

The air is keen and pure

Away to seek the morning

Upon the loftiest tower!

Below the silent passes

The chamois browse in peace

The distant roar of masses

And city clamours cease

'Tis here we leave the sadness

Of cruel earth behind

This is the land of gladness

Of every noble mind.

This is the summit regal

Of boldly sculptured form

'Tis here th' audacious eagle

Soars high to stem the storm

O heavenly frozen fountains!

O Nature vastly grand

Come sing among the mountains

The song of Freedom's land.

"Austerity"

Look what we luckless English are reduced to

This really isn't what we have been used to!

Lord Woolton callously condemns the nation

To rot far short of absolute starvation.

My old profession—'twas by grief unclouded!—

Of "Living skeleton" is overcrowded.

Only 5 soups, no more than 7 fishes,

And barely 14 game and poultry dishes.

Oysters, smoked salmon, vegetables, sweets

And savouries don't count among the "eats":

They are "subsidiary". The grim spectre

Of hunger stalks the Strand. Of course, the nectar

Of Dionysus, in unlimited

Supplies, does something to assuage the dread

Pangs. And we'll use the remnant of our wits,

Go on to Claridge, the Hyde Park, the Ritz,

The Berkeley, Basque, Frascati, Oddenino's,

The Cafe Royal—once the home of beanos!—

And square the meal—so far as Law allows—

At l'Escargot and Lyons' Corner House.

Pity the luckless English! game as bantams,

Even as we fade to unsubstantial phantoms!

The Bed

Beneath this broidered canopy,

Between these gilded cedar posts

Carven with idle imagery,

Faint flit the memories of ghosts

Who played their parts therein, and passed—

Blown on Fate's Boreal blast

Here blindly blundered into birth

Headforemost that ambitious ape

Who would be master of the earth:—

From sea to sea he squandered rape

And murder with unsated lust

Here Night beheld the nuptial revel

Of great King Carlos and his bride,

Deirdre, the daughter of the Devil

Who made adultery her pride

And bore a bastard to a groom

To reign in her lord's room

Here whispered sleek Sir Gut the treason

Within his master's eager ear

That wrecked three kingdoms for a season

And filled a continent with fear;

And—at the last—strangled their hope

Within the hangman's rope

Here the one statesman that could save

His country, died in mid career;

And here the surgeons healed a knave

Who lived to wreck a hemisphere.

This refuge sacred to repose

Brought forth—what wealth of woes.

The camp, the mart, the council-hall:

Not there most weightily is wrought

The work of Fate; in secret, small

Shrines dedicate to Silence, thought

Thrusts in its dagger, deftly deep

To the soul of Love of Sleep.

Tremble no more to fix thy gaze

Upon the gallows and the gun,

These are bit witness to the ways

Whereby the doom decreed is done.

Fear the still pool where Fate is bred,

Hell's heart and brain—the Bed.

Boer Commando's Song

(6 July 1944)

A fireside pipe and a dear old crony—

Here's to a bloody good drunk!

The rest is fiddlesticks, blah, boloney,

Bull-shit, and the bunk!

Up the bottom of Tommy or Tony

Here goes the tinkety-tunk.

The rest is fiddlesticks, blah, boloney,

Bull-shit, and the bunk!

Pick up your rifle and saddle your pony

Show 'em the class of your spunk.

The rest is fiddlesticks, blah, boloney,

Bull-shit, and the bunk!

Chants Before Battle

(circa 1914)

[not published in the English Review]

We are not of the blood of Belshazzar; we are not of the kindred of Cain

We snuff the war in our nostrils; we take no delight in the slain.

The thrill of the fife and the trumpet leaves us still as cold and calm

As the peasant by vine and by olive, the fellah by cactus and palm

Yet to all things on earth, saith the Preacher, are rules where exceptions abound

Shall to this rule be found an exception? To this an exception be found?

Ah no! in the court as the cottage, the castle as hovel and hut

One king rules without an exception and that is the particle BUT,

Whirled high on the banner of Shakespeare, shrilled swift by the wind on the cliff

Is the charter of Albion's freedom, the masterful particle IF

By the Jingo that liveth and reigneth the hole ineffable Jing

The world and its ends [illegible], that sustaineth our prophet our priest and our king

I swear it, that if—which we do not—we do, then the protasis ends

And apodosis thunders in answer its challenge to foes and to friends

That the lee of the fleet is to lanward, the blocks of the Nordenfeldts draw

The Dreadnoughts are [illegible] for levin, they hold the wide ocean in pawn

And the tars that are nearly teetotal the tars that are Christian young men

With their cutlasses clenched in their molars, roar back to the foeman "What then?"

And were this not enough we thank Heaven that sent us the gift of the Jew

That apart from the ships and the sailors we have billions of bullion too.

We would not fight: dear God, we would not fight

Knower of hearts, Thou knowest it is true

We might be beaten; and—it is not right.

We would not fight.

Nay, let none twit us for a coward crew

For by the living Jingo as lips leer

Vulgarian that inane expletives strew

If, if we do

If! if we do! why then, we have the ships

We have the men—great hearts, stout limbs, true-blue!—

And—mark and tremble, ere we come to grips!—

The money too.

Crikey! Gorblimey! Why, Dutchy, you don't think we'd ask fur a scrap?

Naow! We doan warnt ter, I tells yer, shall I put yer 'ed under the tap?

We doan warnt ter. Got that? Why, awright then, thise ere's the straight stuff, if we do

Why we'll blow ole Berlin up wiv Deadnoughts an woant mike a fuss of it too.

We've got men, why my bruvver's a sailor, 'e broke 'is ma's fice for a lawk,

An' the coppers 'ad pinched im fur Griffiths, but we girt 'im away in the dark;

An Paw give 'im 'is lawst 'awf a suffering, it didn't get 'ome to 'im, stritr

How 'e fairly was soft on the bleeder, till 'e saw Ma's ole medal that night.

That's the breed, Dutchy, bulldog fur courage, an gentle as four ale wiv gin.

Do you get it, you blighter from 'Amburg? Jest chew on it! Let it soak in!

An' that aint the end—you can go back to yer Kaiser and tell the ole bloke

Wiv my love that he's mats in the carrot if 'e thinks the ole country's gone broke.

We've the oof, Dutvhy. Ninepence fur fourpence all mide in two tears, it's a fact

It's only the "Mile's" game to kid yer a-sayin we 'ated the hact!

We are twenty million Englishmen

We do not want to fight.

We want to go to bed at ten

And not sit up all night.

We do not want to fight. Oh no!

But if we do, what then?

Foul fall the false and felon foe

Of us (the Englishmen)

We have the ships. The ships are ours.

Are the ships ours? They are.

Ships. Ours. We have them. Malice cowers.

Our ships? Yes. Heaven's ajar!

We have the men. Wir haben Mench!

Tenemos hombres. Nous

Avons les hommes. Be warned, you French!

(We have the money too).

Whatever we may think of war,

For instance "Is it wrong or right?"

"Was Wheeler wise to quit Cawnpore?"

"Should women voters wade in gore?"

"Had Nelson wholly lost his sight

"Would this small island still be tight?"

"Can soldiers live on rape and groundsel?"

"Is the Curragh the Privy Council?"

On these and all such themes men use

To hold the most divergent views.

On this one point we all unite

Listen! We do not want to fight.

Impracticable, doctrinaire,

Bohemian, critic-from-arm-chair,

Philosopher, John=head-in-air,

With such and many other terms

Of just abuse we hail the worms

Who, their backs stubborn to the rod,

False to their country and their God,

Incapable of faith or oath,

Immoral, imbecile, or both,

Insist on asking—asking is!

"But brothers, if it were not thus?"

The answer, if one must be made

To their long-winded, mad trade

To their interminable rant

Their nauseous, un-English cant,

Is by referring them, in short,

To blue-books, Hansards, where report

Is made by the authorities

Whose business or whose duty is

To meet the fanciful, fond, faery,

Fantastic, addled, astral, aery,

Suggestion (supra para 2)

Aforesaid. They will find it true

That should, by what the men who know

Know, knowing that they know it, so

Unthinkable, an usurpature

Both of God's laws and those of Nature,

We do, then—why? we have the ships.,

(No toys be sure for Margate trips!)

We have the men, (a grand old type

Of Briton, Bible, beer, and pipe,

Hard-working sometimes, sometimes leisurely)

And we've the money in the Treasury.

Wrong? Is it wrong? what matters, since wrong may be one with right?

(It is Nietzsche the hedge row that shatters) The fact is we don't want to fight.

But then if we did, why by Jingo, white-sailed are our ships as the flowers

And bluebird our flag and flamingo; the Bible says Ocean is ours.

Our men—we have men—men that man them; like the oaks in the parks are our men

Their chests—no yard measure may span them, and one is worth certainly ten

Of Frenchmen or Germans; moreover, the God of our sires let us thank,

We roll in financial clover—the money is safe in the bank.

Unnumbered

There was a man of London Town

This bloke acquired a great renown

'Twas not for preaching snotty sermons

But from shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shitting on the Germans.

The very day the bloody war

Broke out, that bold old bugger swore

I've fought the Frizzies and the Burmans

Now I'll go shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shitting on the Germans.

His lonely fiancée would linger

A-wagging a consoling finger.

The other girls explained "Oh her man's

Gone shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shitting on the Germans.

In spite of bayonet and an' shell

He give them bloody bastards hell

He left his tail up like a merman's

And went shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shitting on the Germans.

One day he missed his call at roll

The sergeant said " 'Is 'ero soul

Is gone to Heaven as luck determines

Still shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shit — shitting on the Germans.

Diabetes

To find flies greedy over your urine

Argues: a specialist should now be seen.

He will raise eyes and wag his head and snort

Over your last laboratory report.

"Sugar for you is just as bad as meat is;

You are a sufferer from diabetes,

A deadly and insidious disease.

There is no hope of cure. Three guineas please".

It's quite a good deal for a little money;

And, to some people, might appear as funny.

But to the folk who neither drink nor smoke,

And yet have got to croak, it seems no joke.

"Can soldiers live on rape and groundsel?"

"Is the Curragh the Privy Council?"

On these and all such themes men use

To hold the most divergent views.

On this point we all unite

Listen! We do not want to fight.

Did You Speak Truly

Did you speak truly, when you whispered me

Your fierce hysteric love for my boy limbs?

A sigh from my [illegible] mouth steals tenderly,

A little mist of love my sight bedims

For that the faint fear comes to shake my faith

(line erased)

Lest the delightful words thy dear tongue saith

Be as deceiving arrow-heads that kill

I am so weak with the desire of thee

That I shall faint when our lips meet at last

If but thy lips were [illegible] in kissing me

Surely the bitterness of death is past.

Love! I am all thine own and love thine art

But to betray me is to break my heart.

The Divine Durian

There are of God in search who went

Towards, poor souls, the Orient,

And have prolonged their western dramas

With all the evil smelling lamas

In all the thinkable ashramas;

Or lost much time, to the indiscreet,

In learning Pali and Sanskrit;

Or watching priests, with ropes who tackle.

What brought them home save the debacle

Of their poor hopes?

But I for one, deaf to the call

Of astral ropes and gods and all,

Though of no potency mercurian

Have come back with a true if small

God o the celestial durian.

Elegy

(written in a country farmyard

Bell Inn, Aston, Clinton, Bucks—1 May 1944)

Here rests beneath this hospitable spot

A youth to flats and flatties not unknown.

The Plymouth Brethren gave it to him hot;

Trinity, Cambridge, claimed him for her own.

At chess a minor master, Hoylake set

His handicap at—2. Love drove him crazy;

Three thousand women used to call him "pet",

In other gardens daffodil or daisy?

He climbed a lot of mountains in his time.

He stalked the tiger, bear and elephant.

He wrote a stack of poems, some sublime

Some not. Plays, essays, pictures, tales—my aunt!

He had the gift of laughing at himself.

Most affably he talked and walked with God.

And now the silly bastard's on the shelf,

We've buried him beneath another sod.

The End. Rondel.

(circa 1898 or earlier)

The end of everything. The veil of night

Is not so deep I cannot comprehend.

I see before me yawn—a ghastly sight—

The End.

Love long ago deserted me to wend

His way with younger men. Life spreads a blight

Over me now. I have not now one friend.

There is no hope for me; no gleam of light

To my black path will any comfort lend—

Yet will I meet with smiling face, upright

The End.

Fragment of an Ode on British Agriculture.

Ye stalwart sons of England's soil

Be not so sentimental, sad and soppy.

Waste not on wheat and cats your tedious toil,

Grow hashish, coca, and the opium poppy.

God Save Our Gracious George

God save our gracious George

God save our noble George,

God save our George

Send him all glorious

Long to rule over us,

Still moratorious

God save Lloyd George.

O Lloyd our George, devise

Cash for each kite that flies!

Launch paper boats!

Snorting like stallions,

Issue battalions—

Pound notes in galleons

And ten bob notes!

Star in the night, sole hope

Of Europe's horoscope

We saw thee come

Angel athwart the war

Peace from the Chancellor

Safety from foes, o mor

-atorium.

The Gods Took Counsel With the Lords of Fate

(circa September 1923)

The Gods took counsel with the Lords of Fate

"How shall a Master of Mankind dispart

His substance from its shadow, by our Art

Conjoined the grossness of his earth-born state?"

"Let then the little war against the great

That they may purge him of his mortal part

And throne his spirit in the human heart

Above those envies, incommensurate".

It crossed my mind to draw my dripping scourge

Across a Consul's withers—Demiurge

And donkey—but the Muse cries: "Nay my Crowley!

The mean malignant baseness of the brute

Serves to remind your honour to dispute

Each inch of ground that gentle blood holds holy.

Gr-r-r-r-r-r!

(circa 1916)

Oh cabbage-heads soaked in rum!

On the blink, on the bum!

It's right, tight, put out the light!

Putty faces!

Oh grimaces

At this time of night!

Let me draw, paint, sculp

Your faces of pulp!

Oh gulp!

Put out the light!

Diabolically, divinely tight!

What do you know about that?

I'm a cat!

The world's my rat!

It all goes under my hat.

Thin and fat,

On my mat,

I'll paint

You all like a saint,

Until I faint.

Ain't

That quaint?

Gr-r-r-r!

Gr-r-r-r-r-r-r!

Once more for luck!

(Love a duck!)

Gr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!

A Grammarian Croaks

Get up this morning? You're right in your head?

Yes, you all think I were much better dead.

This is the day for my Sunday in bed.

Chorus

Senile decay! All the folk say

I am the victim of senile decay.

See the pen shake as I scribble this verse!

How my voice creaks—I am trying to curse!

Toilett' Intime? I'm in need of a nurse.

Chorus

Senile decay! All the folk say

I am the victim of senile decay.

When I would listen, how little is heard!

When I would talk, I'm at loss for a word.

When I would read, how the letters are blurred!

Chorus

Senile decay! All the folk say

I am the victim of senile decay.

I have some work to do—never you fret

Now for a drink! It's a pretty safe bet

There's a bite left in the old lion yet.

Chorus

Senile decay? Rubbish I say!

Courage is master of senile decay.

Have You Got an Invitation to the Marriage of the Lamb?

I lament that I cannot write common Christian hymns. The field has

been covered so well by the serious writer, However

Have you got an invitation to the Marriage of the Lamb?

Have you found the free salvation of the Firstborn of I AM?

'As He saved you from damnation as He did your dad and Man?

—It's you He's worried over

Were you slated for Election before Eternity?

Are you under the protection of the Wings of the Most High?

Will you join the resurrection and join Jesus in the sky?

—It's you He's worried over.

Like a ram caught in the thicket, by Jehovah's stratagem

Jesus died to save the wicked in His wondrous love for them,

Have you bought a one-way ticket to the New Jerusalem

—It's you He's worried over.

Do you know of any other who can wash you white as snow?

Do you go the way that mother always wanted you to go?

If you think it out, my brother, you will have to answer "NO".

—It's you He's worried over.

Do you realise that Satan has a Jack on which to roast

Your immortal soul, a prey tantalising all his host.

He will get you if you wait and blaspheme the Holy Ghost

—It's you He's worried over.

There is weeping, there is wailing, there is gnashing of the teeth,

There are red-hot spikes impaling the damned souls from down beneath.

Brother join us who are sailing on toward the victor's wreath

—It's you He's worried over.

O my brother, it would please us if you came to God to-night,

You have sinned and it would please us if we knew you were all right.

O my brother, come to Jesus and get Him to make you white

—It's you He's worried over.

O if only you repented of your black iniquities

If you only came with bent head before Jesus on your knees,

Satan would be circumvented, God would heal Sin's leprousies

—It's you He's worried over.

He would save you and not damn, he would call you wheat, not chaff,

To the Marriage of the Lamb He would bid you come and laugh;

You would be one of the family and eat the Fatted Calf

—It's you He's worried over.

When God sounds the gong for supper wash your Sins off in the Fount

Of the Blood His Son gave up, erasing sins on Calvary's Mount

Jesus counters with an uppercut and Satan takes the count

—It's you He's worried over.

The first round was fought in Eden, Adam K.O. through the ropes,

God thought Jesus might succeed in doing better than them Popes,

Nigger Satan's skills and speed an' Science outed our White Hopes

—It's you He's worried over.

He Who Seduced Me First

He who seduced me first I could forget.

I hardly loved him but desired to taste

A new strong sin. My sorrow does not fret

That sore. But thou, whose sudden arms embraced

My shrinking body, and who brought a blush

Into my cheeks, and turned my veins to fire,

Thou, who didst whelm me with the eager rush

Of the enormous floods of thy desire,

Thine are the kisses that devour me yet,

Thine the high heaven whose loss is death to me,

Thine all the barbed arrows of regret,

Thine in whose arms I yearn to be

In my deep heart thy name is writ alone,

Men shall decipher—when they split the stone.

I can't Abide.

I can't abide

A blushing bride.

She sobbed and cried

(She called it 'clied')

And nearly died,

But then she dried

Her tears; she eyed

Me, to confide

Her love for fried

(She called it 'flied')

Eggs; then she guyed

Her Alpine guide

And bade him glide

To hell and hide

His stoney-eyed

Features that lied

Like carbamide

Or cyanide.

She liked the Pied

Piper, and plied

Her arts, and pried

With pouting pride

His heart, to ride

By his dear side

In easy slide

At high spring tide.

In vain he tried,

With his she vied

The Great Divide

Reached far and wide

Her peroxide

Hair, sunny-eyes

As lead azide

And that is why

Deuce take the bride!

I Am Nothing.

I am Nothing, so for me

Nothing is a Verity.

That Nothing comes of Nothing may be true,

But, only when you Nothing do, can aught begin

From your own Being.

It is the endless Din

Of doing and in doing, as we spin

In Space, leads Men to say they Nothing fear.

They do fear "Nothing"— true—,

For Nothing less to them is Death,

But you in whom my spirit moves can sink

Into the Nothingness from which they shrink.

And be reborn as lightly as a Breath.

I Love My Love With an L.

(circa December 1922)

I love my love with an L because she's lustful

And I lent her a lot of lire, because I'm trustful.

I took her out to luncheon at Lafayette's,

Lasagne, Lentil soup, and lobster and lettuce

And lamb, and lemon ice and liches and Limburger

Because she looked such a lank lengthy slim burgher

And I looked for liquor all through the liberal list; I

Bought her Liebfraumilch and Lachryma Christi,

Lafitte and London Gin and Chateau Leoville

Because I wanted to keep her out of the way of ill.

And I gave her a lump of lard, because she was lean

And a lewd little lyric I learnt in a latrine

Because she likes to listen to Lohengrin.

And then I let Lucille loose, making her clothes, some

Lingerie too, because her linen was loathsome,

She made them lilac, lavender, looped and laced

Because her legs would wander up her waist.

And I gave her larkspur, laburnum, lobelia, lily

To wear in her hair because she looked so silly,

And many a like device I did as well

To prove how much I love my love with an L.

"With an L?" She said with rudeness;

"Let L stand first for lewdness,

Then for lechery, lust and after

For lascivious leers and laughter.

Love me with the lance that pushes

Proudly through my bristly bushes

With the Leaping of the Lion

That in vain one keeps an eye on

With the lordliness that begs

No one's leave to part my legs,

With the tight and wrinkled lump

That keeps banging on rump.

Love me with the L of looking

For the aftermath of cooking

With a liking for the wine

Sold in this old shop of mine,

And the steaming Plat du Jour

That my kitchen's toils procure.

Love me with the L of longing

Still unsated by the thronging

Tireless triumphs of our joy,

With the first love of a boy

As with that last love that hallows

The huge horror of the gallows.

Love me with the L of Lordship

Over language, that thy wardship

Of my worship from fatality

Win us poet's immortality.

Love me with the L of lashing

Lust to know such tortured thrashing

Writhing madness that Time

May not match in filth and crime

Our excesses. And also love me

With the L of Light above me,

Shining from your stainless soul

That had always God for goal,

Gained him be the dissolution

Of the illusion of pollution.

Love me with the L of lips

That I bite until blood drips

Down my thirsty throat, at grips

Next between my harlot hips

While your tongue obscenely slips

Into sleekest sin, or dips

Darklier where sits Death, and whips

Lust with his twisted finger-tips

To perverse pleasures that eclipse

Fertility's frail fellow hips.

But also with such lips as swore

To track down Truth for evermore

The poisonous pulp, the bitter rind,

The rotten core, the seeds designed

To multiply their evil kind!

Love me with the L the Lips red0curled

That smiled their challenge to the world

And sang so stern, so smooth, so strong,

So subtle so sublime a song,

That Hell made holiday, for Pan

To have taken on the flesh of Man,

Love me with Lips more pure than Blake,

For God and Africans that ache

With lips more soft and curled than Keats

Where foulness cools and beauty bleats

With lips more passionate than Shelley

That suck all night a whore's raw belly,

With lips that, tempting Shakespeare's kiss,

Boast sodomy and syphilis,

Lips that drip white with sailor's spunk

Across the smeared shit of his punk,

Yet by her soul her cunt outstunk!

With those lips love me, soaked in slime

Let them more subtle and sublime

In eloquence most high and holy,

Majestic and yet melancholy,

And if their inspiration falter,

Find grace free-flowing at mine altar.

Love me with L for Licking Lewd Lea's Loose Lower Longitude

For Lapping Lea's Leaks, and Loving

To suck all holes too small for shoving.

Oh, Love me with an L, your Lea

Because I lay my Leucorrhoea

Loose like a lady, a young river

To irrigate your lazy liver.

Oh Love me with an L for Lending

My Life my Love my unpretending

And modest mouth, my mild melodious

Dim-purpled arsehole, my commodious

Old cunt, my thumbs and fingers, toes and

Nipples and navel, Ears and nose and

All else I have to get you hot on.

What do you fancy your next stunt'll be,

Where your prick is you bet my cunt'll be.

Oh love your love with one more L, boy,

And yet she only breathes to fashion

Form for the pleasures of your passion.

Or fuck my cunt, stuff my bum,

Oh coke me with a cock and come.

Oh piss and shit with me, and vomit

And make a witches dinner from it,

As your whore's carrion may squirt.

Oh see my cunt ooze out obscene

Whites, with the moon-wrought red, and green

Gat gonorrhoea, xanthous meres of

Urine, and orange cakes and smears of

Shit over this my bum bruised azure

And mauve and indigo, to craze your

Prick with the might of an insane Bo-

anerges, rogering a rainbow.

Oh frig my arse. Oh tongue my twat

Oh chew my menses, sniff my snot,

Oh grease my God with my great gob.

Oh make our joy a juicy job.

We won't be bound by fancy's fetters;

We'll teach young L to know his betters,

And love with all the other letters.

I love my Lea with an A

Because her arse goes all the way.

I love her with a B, because

A better Bottom never was.

I love her with a C, for never

Was a Cunt so Crazy or so Clever.

I love her with a D, why Mayn't I

Dote on her Dung Divinely Dainty?

I love her with an E; my pen trails

So far less Eager than her Entrails.

I love her with an F; they race

Her Frigging Fingers, her Fucked Face.

I love her with a G for Gripping

Her Guts to save my prick from slipping.

I love her with an H; I relish Her Hole because its Heat is Hellish.

I love her with an I; her mission

Is Intestinal Intuition.

I love her with a J; I am

A Judge of Jelly Juice and Jam.

I love her with an L, for weeks

I lie and Lick her where she Leaks.

I love her with an M; I fuck

Her Mouth, her Menses and her Muck.

I love her with an N; who thought I

Could be so Nasty or so Naughty?

I love her with an O; refusing

No Offal from her Ovaries Oozing.

I love her with a P, my bliss is

To be her Piss Pot when she Pisses.

I love her with a Q; I swim

In the Quintessence of her Quim.

I love her with an R; I've gotten

A red raw randy rump, rich ripe and rotten.

I love her with an S; she's It

With Spunk, Slime, Slobber, Snot and Shit.

I love her with a T; she's got

My Tool Tight Tucked in her Tart's Twat.

I love her with a U; she hands me

An Uterus that understands me.

I love her with a V; no swine are

As Velvet Vile as her Vagina.

I love her with a W;

My Whore, my Wife, my Will to Woo.

I love my Lea with an X

The unknown quantity of Sex.

I love her with a Y; Love dawns

When her Young Yellow Yeast-yard Yawns.

I love her with a Z; I'll pack her

Zig-zags, by Zeua, with my big Zachar.

I wish instead of twenty-six

Letters to love her, I had pricks.

I Want to Write a Poem Proclaiming

the Confession of Every Star-Soul

(circa July 1922)

Nuith! whose Body is Space

And the infinite Stars thereof,

I set the flame of my face

To seek Thy laughter and love:

I race to Thine eager embrace

Nuith! Thy Star! I surrender

My soul to Thy splendour

Hadit! abiding intense

In every Shrine, I am now

And here nor Spirit nor sense

But wholly and utterly Thou

By Thy virile violence,

Hadit, by the whirling wonder

That brake my being asunder!

Ra-Hoor-Khuit! I adore Thee

Thou crowned, Thou conquering Child

Nuith to Hadit that bore Thee

Of Force and Fire in the wild

World, Death dancing before Thee

Ra-Hoor-Khuit, Life leaping after

With Lust and with Laughter

Aiwaz! Angel of Awe

Thy sword plunges sheer to the hilt

In the world's heart, flashed Thy Law

Terrible; Do what thou wilt.

I leaped up free as I saw,

Aiwaz, Thy Light and heard

The Truth, Thy Word.

Hail to the Great Wild Beast,

The man that mastered the hour;

Hail to him, passionate priest,

Who uttered that Word of power,

Calling the vultures to feast

The carcase of Christ to devour!

Thou Great Wild Beast, Io Paean!

Thou Word made flesh of the Aeon.

Babalon leering and swaying

Drunkenly slack on the saddle,

His strumpet of scarlet, braying

Thy blasphemies, naked astraddle

Thy Beast, sing Thou of the slaying,

Babalon, of the Saints, and the spilth

In Thy cup, of folly and filth

Whores of the Beast, all hail.

Hail, from the first, his wife

Rose the sot, to the stale

Strumpet that brought to life

His son, to Leah whose Grail,

Whores of the Beast, brims with thicker

With lewder and bloodier liquor

Parzival, hail! From the cave

Of the harlot hypocrisy-plastered

Hilarion, whose gluttony gave

Her bed to The Beast, did the bastard

Come forth the Pure Fool. Thou shalt save,

Parzival, the whole world from its blindness,

By simplicity courage and kindness

Ye God-men, ye stars of Nuith,

In your orbits that revel and roll,

The Law of Thelema is sweet

And strong to the swing of the soul.

With the Word of the Beast do I greet

God-men, he hath freed of fatality,

Aware what ye are in reality.

This is not quite the hymn I meant. I want a short

lifting epigrammatic line with simple rimes.

Nuith! Hadith!

Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

I hail Thee, Queen

Of Space unseen

And the infinite

Stars of it.

I hail Thee, heart

Of all that art.

Thou secret source

Of every force.

There is no spot

Where thou art not,

Thou, unextended,

In bliss art blended,

With Her One Space

In every place

At every time,

That Love sublime

With every act

Creates a fact.

Each separate stress

Serves Truth to express,

Some element

Of its extent

As some new star

All things that are

Themselves, that know

Themselves, forth shew

One facet of

The daimond Love,

Express their norm—

How infinite form

Its bodiless

Blank nothingness

May find, and fit

With Infinite

And Formless Being,

Each act agreeing

To its projection

In imperfection

Ra-Hoor-Khuit

With huge hard beat

That most intense

Vast vivid sense

And spirit of

The hoarded Love

Of Space and Seed,

Devised the deed

That brought Thee forth

Thou ravener of Wrath

And Vengeance! Wild

And Wanton Child

Delighting Thee

In cruelty

And Lust, Thou Son

Of all All and None,

Thou sole, Thou dire

Dread God-head Fire

And Force. Thou World

Of Horror, hurled

Through Heaven in ravage.

Spew spouts of savage

Spume of lust—

Thy nature must.

Art Thou then God?

This period

Of earth This aeon?

Cannon Thy paean,

Murder Thy pleasure,

Madness the measure

Of virtue, want

Thy nourishment?

Thy strange High Priest,

The Great Wild Beast,

Lion and Snake,

As he is, may make

Mirth of his dupes

Before he swoops

To gulp us raw.

"Love is the law,

Love under will".

He smiles and still

Some slaver drips

From his lewd lips—

I care not; Thou

Art Master now,

Child Conquering

And Crowned. our King,

Our Ruler still

Whether we will

Or no. Yea more

I choose to adore

This God of Force

And Fire; my course

Is His, unjust

I shall not swerve

His soul to serve,

For in my lust

Of sin I trust

Truth. Mine own heart

Is art and part

Of Nature; she

Can never be

(Though doubt may dream)

In Truth's supreme

Analysis

In aught amiss.

I rise to greet

Ra-Hoor-Khuit

Aiwaz! I heard

Thy wonder word

Upon the earth

Whose name is worth

Will; and thereunder

Love and that thunder

Of speech that seals

The lightning deed

That sows the seed

Of Life and Breath

In the soil of Death;

And that most wast

The first and last

All-comprehending,

Without ending

Or beginning

Of the curse,

The Universe—

Wiser, wider

Than its Spider.

I will NOT go on with this damned thing; and I am more certain than ever

that cocaine is no good under any conditions soever, unless in very small

doses and very few of them. This 'prolonging the agony' simply transforms

me into a dull prosy prolix word-cobbler.

I Went to Call on Edward Clodd

(circa November 1923)

I went to call on Edward Clodd

And found him busy with a rod

Making strict measurements of God

Observing him with lots and lots

Of interest I saw Charles Watts

Who said "This Mary Queen of Scots"

Was just a crazy Catholic

Besides, I simply cannot stick

He swank; "the whole thing makes me sick"

"Mary"! The Reverend McCabe

(Joseph) woke angry and outgrabe

Against the Virgin and the Babe

He said "Such births are not legit-

imate: I liked it not one bit

Even when I was a Jesuit

"Oh Mene Mene Teckel

Upharsin. Things of this sort make Hell

As credible as old Ernst Haeckel,

"philogenous or saprophytic,

It matters little; every critic

Agrees that risk of syphilitic

"Infection must invariably

Follow misconduct!" "Very ably—

As I nigh almost say McCably—

"You put it" answered Edward Clodd

"But don't distract me with these odd

Ideas—I'm busy mapping God".

The purr of fat E.S.P. Haynes

Thrilled the assembly: "Watts complains

Of Mary Queen of Scots's reigns

Too frequent incident's courses'

Of violence the illegal forces

She used instead of neat divorces.

"I could have fixed her up poor kid

Finely—(exactly as I did

For Crowley) for say fifty quid".

I must admit that Haynes can hustle;

But let us hope that all this fuss'll

Be over soon" remarked Earl Russell.

"O hell. You're simply wasting breath"

(said Haynes) "that show at Nazareth

I Went to Call on William Blake

(circa November 1923)

I went to call on William Blake,

And found him scrapping with Isaiah;

Ezekial busy cutting cake,

And tea was poured by Obadiah.

Moses was eating buttered toast,

And Paul was punishing the crumpets.

They talked about the Holy Ghost,

And how to act towards our dumb pets.

Blake offered me the caviar,

And asked me what I thought of Browning.

He gave me an immense cigar

And showed me how to save the drowning.

Such hospitality as his

I wish I met more often in this

Unsociable wild galaxy's

Worst planet—what a labyrinth is

Life at its best. I'd go on strike

If only for example's sake

If it were not for people like

My good friend Mr. William Blake.

I went to tea with Algernon

Charles Swinburne, who was drinking brandy

Out of a bucket: so was John

Ruskin, and sucking sugar candy.

Rossetti used a long stout straw

To soak up whisky by the gallon;

While Herbert Spenser sang the Law

Of Evolution with Grant Allen

As a duet with Sullivan

Had just composed that day at lunch.

The tree of them were black and tan

With boozing Maraschino Punch

My host made haste to open for me

A bottle of his best ole Pernod

I drank it off—its virtues bore me

Into the heart of their Inferno

By Atalanta, I observed

I'd rather like to know (as I'm a sinner)

If this is tea we should be nerved

To have a jolly time at dinner.

De Qunicey wired me to drop in

To lunch with Edgar Allen Poe.

It would have been a shame and sin

To meet such kindness with a no.

They hoped to stir the drowsy God in 'em,

By filling themselves with laudanum.

The lunch qua lunch was not perhaps

A gastronomical success

For all there was to eat was scraps

Of yesterday's neglected mess.

But oh the jars of opium,

And Oh the company—yum! yum!

Coleridge was sprawling on a mat

Fighting the bamboo to a finish,

While Baudelaire, in high silk hat

And boots constructed to diminish

The size of his flat feet was assish

Enough to swallow pounds of hashish.

De Maupassant produced a stench

Abominably vile with ether;

And Wilkie Collins brought a wench

Who thought all alcohol was beneath her.

So all through lunch to my surprize

They shot more morphine in their thighs.

Between the courses Nietzsche took

Pinch after pinch of heroin

So regular it made him look

Less like a man than a machine.

I reckoned that he might put away

At least a kilogramme a day.

I found myself most warmly greeted

By Poe, who told me that my brain

Would find its genius completed

By several ounces of cocaine;

And like a veritable Prince, he

Borrowed the bottle from de Quincey.

They introduced me to their friends

Like Francis Thomson, Ernest Dowson,

Who bolted pills of divers blends

Of dope—we nearly set the house on

Fire, for the curry William Sharpe ate

Was hot enough to burn the carper.

Others again wolfed belladonna,

Chewed mescal buttons, smoked stramonium:

I murmured to Augustus John a

Remark about the Pandemonium.

He hadn't had so wild a day

Since leaving the Y.M.C.A.

I Who am Dying for thy Kiss

I, who am dying for thy kiss, must go

Where the crowd thickens in the noisy street

Walk in the [illegible] air, who used to know

Warmth, calm, and love twixt thy beloved feet.

Now, for thy glory, is some old man's shame,

For thy smooth mouth, some bearded monster's throat.

Now for thy white warm figure the ill fame

Of a shrunk body, rank as any stoat.

Is there an end, a hope, a chance to live

Beyond these agonies, to thee to turn

And revel in the fire [illegible] thy love shall give

Or—would your arms a harlot's body spurn?

Ah! If your lips my lips their love denied,

I should not have strength left for suicide.

If You Rupture Your Peritoneum

(circa 1913)

If you rupture your peritoneum,

You're tied all your life to a truss,

So let us all chant a Te Deum

If that has not happened to us

If you run up against gonococcus

You learn what a catheter means,

Thank God if he spares us the jocus

Of serving us that with our greens.

If Anopheles feed on your forehead

You suffer malarial pangs

Pray Providence spare you the horrid

Effect of those feminine fangs.

If you get cacoethes scribbendi

It's dead you had better be—

Kneel down and thank Allah Effendi

You're not a poor poet like me!

In Disillusion

(circa March 1923)

Life in itself is nothing worth

To protoplast or Demiurge

The heavens are futile as the earth

Their choir but orchestrates its dirge

The utmost bitterness is mirth

Those moments only when the mind

Moves beyond manifested things

To mysteries all undefined

Yet sure bear wisdom on their wings,

Are beautiful as they are blind.

I dared nor live unless to draw

Some water from the wilderness

For them that thirst: and lo I saw

Failure the sister of success—

All's level in the scale of Law.

I dare not die until by sure

Signal and seal I know my Will

Wrought from the lyric overture

To the best epic chord. Fulfil

My Fortune. Therefore I endure.

In Fur and Silk

My sleeping suit is broidered silk

Softer than even my smooth skin

My little feet are white as milk

My arms are open as for sin.

Rich furs of Asia, warm, beloved

Of little sparks and noises, drape

The floor with silent languor moved

To [illegible] shape.

In silk and fur and fur and silk

And all the ivory of my skin

I listen for the drowsy purr

That is your signal to come in.

I want to feel your breath disturb

The warm sweet air about my throat,

To feel your whole live body curb

My passion till our faces float

In the warm nectar of a kiss—

I would your clasp would tighten still,

Minute by minute of pure bliss,

Hour by hour until it kill.

I would I died in your embrace

With all my body bright and bare

Filling the ardour of your face

With kisses mantling everywhere,

My whole sweet body blushing shame,

My hair still stinging your desire,

My eager lips suffused with flame

My mouth athirst with salt sweet fire.

Abased, defiled, and desecrated,

Ravished, abused, I love to lie

With all my senses violate—

Only the ravisher hard by.

Bruised by your kisses, bleeding yet

Where your white teeth devoured my flesh—

Lover, that agony forget

And bring your mouth to mine afresh.

Drown with thy murderous love my life,

Consume my flesh, destroy my soul.

Only—'your love', 'your boy', 'your wife',

Still let thy tongue's lithe music roll.

Only, my head must turn to thine,

So thou mayst drink my dying breath,

Then flood me with envenomed wine

And let thy passion be—my death.

Isabella II

(completed 13 February 1945)

Poor Isabella had a lot of woes to weep, they said.

She hadn't got a basil pot to park her lover's head,

She put it in a biscuit tin and looking down the highway,

Said Saints preserve the next with nerve to come a wooing my way!

He came, the fool; his simple rule was: When you see it, snatch it!

I boldly dare to venture where the chicken got the hatchet.

Her brothers may refuse O.K. to my projected programme.

Though I fill up our friendship's cup in memory of Grogram!

It all came out, no nose could doubt that stench was not the biscuit.

Her boy they trussed and neatly thrust a bodkin through his brisket.

The moral is: in other's business nose refrain to stick in,

Lest man repeat that tragic feat—the hatchet and the chicken!

Let Me Arise-and Freedom!

(circa June 1922)

Let me arise—and Freedom! Lurk! Withdraw!

Upon them! I invoke the Lord of Speech.

Cast on this windswept spit of sand to bleach

A starfish husk. I am the Star who saw

August and Arcane Truth, embattled Awe,

Whose might anointed me and armed to teach

This One Word, this None other Word to preach:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

(another version)

Lurk! Withdraw! Upon them! I invoke the Lord of Speech

Cast on this windswept spit of sand to bleach

A starfish husk, I am the Star that saw

August and Arcane Truth embattled Awe,

Whose might anointed me and armed to teach

This One Word, this None other Word to preach

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

The Last Journey

There is not marked on any chart

The holy Isle of Avalon;

No matter from what shore you start,

It lies beyond the horizon.

All year its golden apples glow;

All year its blossoms shed perfume;

Its mountains gleam with constant snow

And flowers adorn its every coombe.

To make the Port of Avalon

Nor chart nor compass aught avail.

It lies beyond the setting sun,

My skiff must have not car nor sail.

In Avalon's continual spring

Birds blossom and trees give delight,

Slow pulses of pure pleasure swing

The soul in trances infinite.

Along a coast of sheer black ice

Cut off a man's height I must go;

And yet the clear green testifies

To some enchantment far below,

That emanates a warm perfume,

Soft, silken as a woman's breast;

Life rises in immortal bloom

And sinks to its eternal rest.

Here, where nor moon nor stars by night

Nor sun by day perturb the peace

Of this ecstatic orb of Light

—Began not, as it shall not cease.

Shipman! Accept the lawful coin!

Amngn! Eheieh! Allah! or To On

That pays my forfeit to rejoin

Mine ancestors in Avalon!

The Last Quatorzani

Out of the night forth flashed a star—mine own!

Now seventy light years nearer as I urge

Constant mine heart through the abyss unknown

Its glory my sole guide while spaces surge

About me. Seventy light years! As I near

That gate of light that men call death, its cold

Pale gleam begins to pulse, a throbbing sphere,

Systole and diastole of eager gold,

New life immortal, warmth of passion bleed

Till night's black velvet burns to viruson. Hark!

It is Thy voice, Thy word, the secret seed

Of rapture that admonishes the dark.

Swift! By necessity must righteous drawn,

Hermes, authentic augur of the dawn!

Love Me or Leave Me

Love me or leave me, death is always kind

Kiss me or kill me, he will solace me

My lips are desolate; my desires are blind

My whole life languishes for love of thee.

Give me thy love, I will not keep it long,

Lend me thy lips, it is but for an hour,

I shall dissolve, as sinks the hollow song,

I shall fade silently, as fades a flower.

Thou shalt endure. I dare not hope for this,

To be absorbed in thy dear life at last,

To mingle death and wedlock in thy kiss

To feel thy soul to my poor soul cling fast

Still, whether love or scorn my lips excite

Death will receive me and destroy me quite.

The Loving Ballad of John Antony Long

I explained the tenets of Anglo-catholicism to a boy in the black out,

'Is name was John Antony Long.

An' as I was hauling the slack out,

'E uttered 'is sorrerful song:

"Oh mother, dear mother, you said it,

"You shu-ly foresaw what would come.

"With every good reason to dread it,

"I've got a man's heart in my breast."

An' the chorus of Ai-yer raid Wardens

Came 'umming like 'arps in the ai-yer;

"This is not at all in accordance

"With what father told us was fair."

The Bishop of London, appealed to,

Said: "Popery's under my ban.

"Whatever induced you to yield to

"The arguments of this heretical old man?"

Saying: "Antony, darlint, I want ye,

"I promise I'll not make ye imperil your salvation.

"Dear Antony, don't be a conchie,

"But 'elp us in winning the war."

An' the chorus of Ai-yer Raid Wardens,

They mide a most joy-er-ful noise:

"Our Wellingtons, 'Avelocks, an' Gordons

"All started by attending to the spiritual welfare of boys."

They gyve me command of the Nyve-aye:

I syled up the Spree to Berlin.

"Stick it out!" was the signal I gyve! I

'Eard Antony's sly Lead me to the true light

Singing "Mother, dear mother, I'm doing

"In my humbler way just what you did before.

"It may be me maw-orral ruing:

"At least I am winning the war."

An' the chorus of Ai-yer Raid Wardens

Broke out inter jubilant song:

"That everything's fine in the gawden's

"The work of John Antony Long."

Lyric of Love to Leah

(circa Tunis, August 1923)

Come my darling, let us dance

To the moon that beckons us

To dissolve our soul in trance

Heedless of the hideous

Heat and hate of Sirius—

Shun his hateful brilliance.

Let us dance beneath the palm

Moving in the moonlight, frond

Wooing frond, above the calm

Of the Ocean diamond

Sparkling to the sky beyond

The enchantment of our psalm.

Let us dance, my mirror of

Perfect passion won to peace,

Let us dance my treasure trove,

On the marble terraces

Carven in pallid embroideries

For the vestal veil of Love.

Heaven awakes to encompass us,

Hell awakes its jubilance

In our hearts mysterious

Marriage of the azure expanse,

With the scarlet brilliance

Of the Moon with Sirius.

Velvet sways our lissome limbs,

Languid lapped by sky and sea,

Soul through sense and spirit swims

Through the pregnant porphyry,

Dome of lapis-lazuli—:—

Heart of silence, hush our hymns.

Come my darling; let us dance

Through the golden galaxies

Rhythmic swell of circumstance

Beaming passions argosies:

Ecstasy entwined with ease,

Terrene joy transcending trance.

Thou my scarlet concubine

Draining heart's blood to the less

To empurple those divine

Lips with living luxuries

Life importunate to appease

Drought insatiable of wine.

Tunis in the tremendous trance

Rests from day's incestuous

Traffic with the radiance

Of her Sire— and over us

Gleams the intoxicating glance

Of the Moon and Sirius.

Take the ardour of my impearled

Essence that my shoulders seek

To intensify the curled

Candour of the eyes oblique,

Eyes that see the seraphic sleek

Lust bewitch the wanton world.

Come my love, my dove, and pour

From thy cup the serpent wine

Brimmed and breathless-secret store

Of my crimson concubine

Surfeit spirit in the shrine

Devil— Goddess— Virgin— Whore

Afric sands ensorcel us,

Afric seas and skies enhance

Velvet, lewd and luminous

Night surveys our soul askance.

Come my love and let us dance

To the Moon and Sirius.

Musings on a Wet Sunday Afternoon.

A lady whose name was Cordelia

Was reading the Essays of Elia

"This bores me" she groans

"I'll turn to 'Tom Jones'

"By Fielding, or—yes?—his 'Amelia';

"With Dadian Prince of Mingrelia,

Play chess? Or see Hamlet? Ophelia

"Has not, you'll admit

"Her fair share of 'IT'

"No more than had Mother Cornelia—

"Cornelia, dam of the Gracchi;

"Men looked on her charm with a slack eye.

"She failed when she went

"To pick up the rent—

"No wonder they gave her a black eye!"

Desunt cetera—thank God!

My Back is Saddled with the Scum.

My back is saddled with the scum

Of Bermondsey, my house become

A foul insanitary slum

For sloppy shit and beery bum

Spit on my carpet, call my 'chum'

—Is this the fine millenium

They promised us, that fatal hour

When we put Socialists in power?

On A Scrap of Paper

(circa 1916)

Equipment

War engulphs nation after nation,

Its tide is very far from ebbing.

Now what about that regulation

About the blancoing of webbing?

Alas if only that were all!

A spiteful demon keeps on hissing

"And those big noises in Whitehall

That seem to have a button missing".

Parody on Xmas—A Ballad

For further details should you care

(Bring piss and sweat and spunk and shit)

Consult that chapter in La Terre

(It makes me sick to think of it)

For Zola's glory, if you can

Bring gold and frankincense and myrrh

The poor old wife of such a man

O Holy Spirit pity her.

Phlebitis.

Salt makes a great improvement in an egg;

Not so phlebitis in the human leg.

So swollen and so inelastic is it,

That the physician on his earliest visit,

Wraps it in gauzes, puts it in a splint,

And gives the patient no uncertain hint:

First "Quies cuius est suprema lex"

Second "Prepare for passing in your checks"

For if the blood clot to your lung you jerk

The rest is merely undertaker's work.

Kneel by your bedsides, children, in your nighties,

And pray that God may keep you from phlebitis.

The Poetry Society.

The Poetry Society. St. Vitus

St. Borborygus, aid! The thin screams fell

And rose like spasms in some hothouse hell

Peopled by scraggier harpies than Cocytus.

Dull dirty décolletés dilettante!

I sickened to the soul; above the babble

Of that cacophonous misshapen rabble

Rose like a cliff the awful form of Dante.

Colossally contemptuous and weary

The iron eyes of Dante Aligheri

Burn into mine; their razor lightnings carve

My capon soul. "What dost thou here?" they said:

"Art thou not worthy to be dead?

Canst thou not go into the street and starve?"

Recruits

Let the fire die down, and push the drawers of the desk in!

"I will arise and go now, and go to" Boleskine.

There I leapt with the torrent, a boy, and grappled the crag,

Laughed with the sun, with the wind and the rain, with the eagle, the stag.

Now that the world is grimmer I go there forty years after

Back to my bens and glens, with steadier leaping and laughter.

We have lost two million dead, blind fools for our four years' pain;

Thanks to our spineless chiefs, the Hun is at it again.

Now I must back to the North, back to my bracken and heather,

Back to the stubborn moors and the savage joy of the weather,

Brandish the Fiery Cross ablaze on the jut of the crag

Rally the sons of the clans to the fame of the flame of the flag.

March, lads, march at dawn! March through noon to sundown!

The Front is across the Rhine; come, lads, let us be stirring

Pepper into the soup of Hitler and Goebbles and Goering.

I've raked out the study fire; I've pushed the drawers of the desk in.

"I will arise and go now"—back to bloody Boleskine.

The Red Lips of the Octopus

The red lips of the octopus

Are more than myriad stars of night.

The great beast writhes in fiercer form than thirty stallions amorous

I would they clung to me and stung. I would they quenched me with delight.

They reek with poison of the sea

Scarlet and hot and langorous

My skin drinks in their slaver warm, my sweats his wrapt embrace excite

The heavy sea rolls languidly o'er the ensanguined kiss of us.

We strain and strive, we die for love. We linger in the lusty fight

We agonize; our clutch becomes more cruel and more murderous.

My passion splashes out at last. Ah! with what ecstasy I bite

The red lips of the octopus.

The Saint and the Thief

Mohammed Ali ibu Messaoud

Trusted to Allah for his daily food.

And so with favour was the saint anointed

That never once had he been disappointed.

One day this pious person wished to shave

His head, laid by his turban; but a knave

Spied opportunity to mischief, scanned

(As secret as a serpent in the sand)

The prospect, snatched it slyly from behind—Off to the desert like the desert wind;

And when the good man would resume his prayer,

Behold! his turban was no longer there.

In rushed Abdullah, Hassan, and Hoseyn.

"Yes, there he goes, the bastard of a swine!

"Hasten and catch him!" But the good man went

With melancholy eyes and sad intent

Unto the burying-ground without the wall

And there he sate, stern and funereal,

His spirit shrouded from the lamps of sense,

A moment of earnest patience.

"Sir!" a disciple dared at length to say:

"That wicked person took another way."

"Wide is the desert," quoth the saintly seer:

"But this is certain, that he must come here."

Song

I would clothe truth

With glory unimagined.

I would weave youth

New garlands for his head

On sorrow's brow

Let my songs light glad torches.

For temples now

Let old gods have new porches.

When slumber comes

And Night lies on my soul,

And the death drums

Their forlorn music roll,

Then shall man's heart

Be glad of my poor singing,

The birds of art

Fresh flowers shall be bringing

On my low bier

Strew blooms of clematis,

Love, let one tear

Melt in thy last smooth kiss.

The Spirit of Solitude

(circa September 1923)

Immune to troublous Thought and Innocent

Of aught beyond the impulse of the hour

I grew and throve a tall and slender flower,

Reaching its forehead to the firmament

Will pallid hues and faint elusive scent,

Unconscious of the portent of the power

That slept within my soul till sun and shower

Should wake the Ineluctable Event.

I never scrutinised the lure of living,

I knew not of reluctance of thanksgiving,

I sought no secret of the truth of things;

Nor Who, nor What, I meant by Self; nor How

Nor Why I came to be; that I was now

Who was not Then awoke no questionings.

A tall slim flower, unconscious of its needs

Or Nature; taking Sunlight, Air and Rain

And Earth for granted; neither fearing pain

Nor craving pleasure, seeking not to read

The Riddle of the Future. All my Greed

Was formless faith in life; the silent sane

Instinct to trust, without the wish to explain

Facts as I found them, felt them and agreed.

I bent my blossom blithely to the breeze;

My roots took hold on secret treasuries;

My petals vowed their velvet to the sun;

My leaves absorbed the wind and drank the dew;

I never cared to know and never knew

The Word that willed these duties to be done

Beauty, to Nature wholly natural,

In Nature I beheld; in life there flowed

It's Heart's Blood, Love whose energy bestowed

On Thought a tide of trembling sensual

And Magick-music; eager to the call

I sprang; my spirit leapt from its abode

Of silence, song spontaneous overflowed,

Echoing that joy with laughter lyrical.

Intense sang my Soul out to the stars,

Meaningless measures coursing in their cars

Of rapture through the circus of the night,

Attuned to art by instinct to express

Truth not yet crystallised in consciousness,

And deluge me with and drown me in delight.

Stray Verse

The Jesuit who loves to play

Upon his congregation

Scourges the vices of his day,

A pleasing titillation:

Delight (he murmurs in their minds)

To think that your absurd behinds

Are worthy of the darkest kinds

And deepest of damnation.

Sunrise on Trebizond

Semester of spinach appalls the catamaran's bedside

Manna—quails Upanishads super-conscious Id

With its narcissist buttonhook cry-baby Omega

While Mary—Mari—Marie saucepans eggs from hunting-birds' song, but

No Malthusian indefatigable what-not

Toying unpleasantly squeamish hams in

Cauliflower Rhineland mortician not

Not no never nimbly evacuating Eliza

In rapture as into Israfelchocolate

Lightning at Lyons' Corner House. Woof!

She straddles lucidity lapping froth of

Fumbling old chickenpox gallimaufry.

Click. Gangrene in of from Metheglin.

Mortuaries moaning at St. Giles-in-the-Crab-Salad.

This is not so much my impressions of that sunrise, but an attempt to express what

the man is trying to convey to the native.

To "Him" of Promise

HE:

When your body white and slender is entwined about mine own,

And your lips so soft and tender find on mind their throbbing home;

When I crush your quivering flesh, dear, with a force and with a fire

As if death could but refresh, dear, and our bodies never tire;

Swift as lightning runs the vintage of the Sun throughout our veins,

Poured between us without stintage, cooling us like Summer rains,

As it flows from me to you, dear, surging back from you once more,

Recombined as 'me and you', dear, sealed within life's hidden store:

How it cleaves the twain asunder—reunites them from above.

Who shall say our lives are two, dear, since we've met and made them one?

Or recall the pearly dew, dear, once it's gone to greet the Sun?

SHE:

Though the Moon must rise and set, love, wax and wane thrice three times more,

I shall feel without regret, love, new life knocking at that door;

And that door shall gladly open—as it did to let you in—

Once again, as love's own token, you shall greet the Sun in "Him".

To Pass Through the Pale Streets

To pass through the pale streets with carmined lips.

To bear the harlot's taunt, the passer's scorn

To woe and be refused, to touch the lips

Of some old sinner's fingers, to be worn

Hour after hour by hope deferred; at last

To find a man, decrepit, palsied, sere,

To bargain, to embrace, to hold him fast,

To kiss the toothless gums, the eyelids blear,

To wake forgotten vices, to abase

My young live body to his weary lust,

His filthiness to wallow on my face—

God, send thy fire and strike me into dust.

Hell has no anguish such as this

Ah God! to think that I was born a man!

Ultimatum

Osiris by Ossiosis and mouldiewerp

Pottering above under along overtime

Undersigned und er undertaker undies

Very very oh mother all antistrophe

Like Heil Hitler on the Underwood in

The Underground pattering, pittering, pottering

Puttering Comrade Roosevelt with Peke

And Jake unfettered moonlight if winter

Comes Judas developing scarletina rash

Reckless oh boy!

Old school tie eschewing international

Rule Brittania metal laisses-faire

Forward Quakers! Up up up down yes

Up Sir Roger de Coverley and at 'em

Crowning crescent expertise on on B44

The charwoman charge in Half Moon Street

And and deficit defunct meteors

Madge Plymouth Hoe and atrocities

Summons Stalag G 23

At the first blush of radium

Boot polish

Why It Would Tickle Me to Death

"You know me—that I never boast—

But I would simply love to roast

That rotten egg the Holy Ghost"

"I never could approach the limen"

Sneered Robert Blatchford sourly) "why men

Make all this fuss about a Hymen

"It's made precisely like a pie-crust—

I'd sooner let my push-bike rust

Than let my good old marlinspike rust".

X-Mas — A Ballad

The Virgin lies in Bethlehem