She’ll need, for winters in these harsher years

Some real talent in that bum of hers.

More needful than a soulful gaze and sighs

(Although she’ll need them too) are eager thighs

Performing tricks with gusto and desire.

THERE AT THE BEGINNING . . .

There at the beginning, the first day

When that entwining couple entered here

The threshold knew they would not get away

It took the footfall that would be their last.

Behind the lattice the green tree sank to sere

And yellow discreetly, very fast

And climbing trembling to bed they were

With a smile by the wind they loved dismissed.

BALAAM LAI IN JULY

In July after the decline and fall of the Marquise

And his expulsion from Paradise

Standing in the dead bulrushes

At a pond with flies

Buzz buzz

Balaam Lai, supersaturated drunk that he was

Balaam Lai got smitten by the sun

God help us!

Balaam Lai, spirituous spirit of The White Carnation

Spat offhandedly into the pond of flies

Splash

Chewed things over and composed an invitation

To Anna Clouds

To join him that night in a solemn lamentation

And went and purchased another pair of duck eggs.

God have mercy on Anna Clouds!

But when the evening palely and in great pain began to darken

Balaam Lai had doubts

When Anna Clouds in the twilight came

Sailing along with her parasol, white as cream.

For Anna Clouds when it came to it was quite without

Any false delicacy in her free views

On love, God knows, she was the last person

To be fobbed off with lousy conjuring tricks

And not judge a man on his performance as though

He fed on the wafers of the Lord and raw eggs

And Balaam Lai knew this.

In brief, she observed that windows are made of glass

And when he didn’t draw the curtains she did

And at eight o’clock was lounging on Balaam Lai’s lily pad

(Whilst he like grim death read the Evening News).

Now when Anna Clouds began chewing her pink toes for boredom

Balaam Lai gave rapid thought as to how

This unchaste creature could be evicted from his wigwam

But saw no way and the best he could do

He thought, was trot off and buy red wine and quickly get

Her very drunk on it.

And she might pass out

While he sat over a noble and corpulent tome oppressed

By the decline and fall of the West.

But she, full of wine and wriggling around on his cushions,

Stared him stiff to share

What had occurred to her.

So then, she slugged the bottles and was the cold-soberest

Most frivolous person on earth when with all the winningness

Of a Valkyrie desperate for corpses

She invited him to join her in a little tenderness.

SONG OF LOST INNOCENCE FOLDING THE LINEN

1

The thing my mother told me

It can’t be true, I’m sure.

She said, Once you are soiled

You’ll never again be pure.