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 A withdrawn cork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...