PAINT me a cavernous waste shore | |
| Cast in the unstilled Cyclades, | |
| Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks | |
| Faced by the snarled and yelping seas. | |
| |
| Display me Aeolus above | 5 |
| Reviewing the insurgent gales | |
| Which tangle Ariadne’s hair | |
| And swell with haste the perjured sails. | |
| |
| Morning stirs the feet and hands | |
| (Nausicaa and Polypheme), | 10 |
| Gesture of orang-outang | |
| Rises from the sheets in steam. | |
| |
| This withered root of knots of hair | |
| Slitted below and gashed with eyes, | |
| This oval O cropped out with teeth: | 15 |
| The sickle motion from the thighs | |
| |
| Jackknifes upward at the knees | |
| Then straightens out from heel to hip | |
| Pushing the framework of the bed | |
| And clawing at the pillow slip. | 20 |
| |
| Sweeney addressed full length to shave | |
| Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base, | |
| Knows the female temperament | |
| And wipes the suds around his face. | |
| |
| (The lengthened shadow of a man | 25 |
| Is history, said Emerson | |
| Who had not seen the silhouette | |
| Of Sweeney straddled in the sun). | |
| |
| Tests the razor on his leg | |
| Waiting until the shriek subsides. | 30 |
| The epileptic on the bed | |
| Curves backward, clutching at her sides. | |
| |
| The ladies of the corridor | |
| Find themselves involved, disgraced, | |
| Call witness to their principles | 35 |
| And deprecate the lack of taste | |
| |
| Observing that hysteria | |
| Might easily be misunderstood; | |
| Mrs. Turner intimates | |
| It does the house no sort of good. | 40 |
| |
| But Doris, towelled from the bath, | |
| Enters padding on broad feet, | |
| Bringing sal volatile | |
| And a glass of brandy neat. | |
| |
